Hey there! Our weather has been SO lovely lately, and I’ve been knocking out outdoor projects. I set up the back patio, cleaned off the front porch and cleaned up the flower beds. But my favorite projects have been on our garage doors!
I’ve made a few simple updates that have made a big impact. I don’t think I’ve ever showed you the garage side of the house, but we love our doors. They fit perfectly with the modern Craftsman style of our home.
My plan when we were building was to have “dark sky” lights hanging above our garage doors. These are lights that shine the light down, so they lower light pollution. I just love the way they look and love them hanging over a garage door.
Unfortunately when it came time to wire them, they could not install them above the doors because of the headers. There just wasn’t enough room with our design. So at the last minute I scrambled to pick out new coach lights for outside.
I picked something inexpensive, knowing I’d eventually change them out. They ended up being way too small for our house, but were fine for a while. I wasn’t thrilled when the finish on one started coming off:
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They are only two and half years old — way too soon for this to happen! But I took that as my signal to change them out. I found these
black dark sky lights at Lowe’s awhile back and fell in love:
They were exactly what I had in mind when we were building!
They are a little different in that they are LED lights that cannot be changed out (no bulb to replace). I’m a little nervous about that, but the price was pretty good and I know we’ll save on electricity costs. I just hope they last for years!
I got a magnetic set soon after moving in and went to add them to the doors…and then realized the trim that we love so much on the doors is not metal. The doors are, but not the trim:
Wah wahhh. So those went back!
Fast forward a couple of years and I decided to give it a try again! This time with ones you attach on the door (like our old set). I found this
decorative garage door set at Home Depot:
They are really easy to install — just figure out where you want them, then mark the holes with a pencil:
I started with a smaller drill bit, and then put tape over the hole before making it a bit bigger. Putting the tape on top helps keep the drilled hole super clean:
The wood doesn’t lift up around it with the tape — that’s important if I ever want to take these off and fill the holes later. Just in case! 🙂
No need so far, because we love them!:
You can see my final little project in that photo — I’ve always wanted to add a flower pot between the two garage doors. Those are wave petunias and they will fill in nicely and spill all over. They are a great option price-wise because they get so full.
Here’s how it all came together! They are little changes but look so good!:
I wish I had taken a before picture! But you get the idea. 🙂
That garage door hardware comes with two sets of hinges and a set of handles. Usually you’d use both set of hinges on one door (see how I did it
at the old house here), but with our current garage door design I only needed one for each garage door.
So now I have one set of handles — I think it would look great to add them, but I’d have to buy another whole set in order to get two more handles for the other door.
For now we’re living without (we like it just fine with the hinges):
But eventually I may bite the bullet and buy another set for the handles. Maybe I can sell the remaining hinges.
Here’s a look at the dark sky garage lights — they don’t illuminate as much as regular coach lights do, but they still give off plenty of light:
I have a big project planned for the doors someday, but I won’t be doing that myself. It will finish off this spot perfectly! Stay tuned for that…eventually. 🙂
I love adding character inside and out of the house! These are some really simple ways to do just that.
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Thrifty Decor Chick
