Garage Door Makeovers! Trompe l'oeil and Traditional Style

Every once in a while, you run across an obscure blog and your jaw drops..... You're thinking, What?  She should have a billion followers!  

That's what happened when I ran across Lynda's trompe l'oeil painted barn styled carriage garage doors.  

She mentions that they were STARK WHITE before she began.....ya, WHITE!

She PAINTED them to look like cool barn wood!

From white to brown in no time! (I love paint)

Or how about this little scrolly work she did on this ladies home - isn't it amazing??  Really!

The pattern reminds me of an artistic wall art board my friend and I saw at a local home decor shop.  I would LOVE to make something just like that.....maybe I will :-)

This next set of photos was one of the very FIRST projects I saw when I entered the world of blogging.  I am still a subscriber to Remodelaholic and Cassity has even featured a few of my projects on her blog. :-)
Garage doors make up SO much of your home, we may as well make them look the best we can!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

That project isn't painted :-)  They put wood over the top of the garage doors.....they give you a full step by step tutorial.

Lastly, I wanted to show you what Terry did from Forever Decorating.  Her husband wanted to have cool hinges, pulls AND windows for his garage doors.  She knew that would be a ton of money so while he was away :-)  she PAINTED on black hinges, pulls and yes, painted in windows.  Now there is some creativity and some GUTS!  

All that you see in black - was just painted on! Even the windows!

If I was to do my garage doors, I would probably buy some dummy hinges like you see on my front door that I did.  They're cheap and hand made from iron.  

I just glued on the cool iron hinges and hammered in the clavoses!  You can see the step by step tutorial of my front door.

What do you think??  

Planning to paint or add embellishments to your garage doors after seeing those pictures?? 

I found a great site that had TONS of garage doors to view in their image gallery.  If you are thinking about updating your garage doors or have new home construction, take a look at all the ideas! 

Here are a few:

Isn't the idea of adding windows ABOVE the garage doors cool!

Classic Carriage style doors with gridded windows.

Carriage style with dummy iron hinges and pulls.

Although this house is in a league of it's own, I couldn't resist adding it because it's just so pretty!!!

   

Here's to getting our Creative Juices stirred :-)