If you've followed our blog for a while, you know that we occasionally reference how much a garage door has an impact on the overall exterior aesthetic of a home. We know this to be particularly true in our areas of Sioux City and Yankton, where newer homes (those built in 1970 and later) line the street with dominating, garage-forward designs. In those cases, a garage can take up as much as 30% of a home's curb appeal, making its maintenance and design that much more important.

But what if you have an older, smaller home? Does changing the garage style and color still give it the same upgrade and pop? Well, thanks to our wonderful Garage Door Design Center, you can find out almost instantly, and in many, many ways.

Here's our example home, located in Northside Sioux City. This conventional mid-century ranch features what could be its original door.

After one quick upload to the Overhead Door Garage Door Design Center, we were on our way, surfing though several traditional and contemporary styles, colors, window options, and hardware options. Here are a designs we came up with, and our reasoning behind them.

A Bold Departure...or is it?

Mirroring the rectangles from the windows and the green of the shutters, this aluminum and frosted-glass design pushes the modern envelope on this Sioux City home, but with a crisp, mid-century nod. We love how just adding color to an aluminum garage door is enough to warm and soften it,and it isn't a stretch at all to see how these elements could work together. 

Take it up a notch.

Removing the windows increases the privacy on this little garage, which is likely being used for storage given the house's small footprint. Rather than let the garage door fade into the rest of the little white Northside house, we make it the focal point. The hard part here wasn't whether or not to put a bold hue on the door, it was whether or not we wanted to change the home's overall color scheme all together. Because teal looked great. And so did deep purple. And black. And...

Would wood work?

Here's where the beauty of the Garage Door Design Center really shows itself. What if we did something completely different? In a few clicks, we've changed the design, materials, color, and hardware. And suddenly we found ourselves with a a door that could be the start of a complete, yet not overwhelming, curb appeal renovation. 

This is why we encourage our clients to start thinking about a home's exterior from the garage door first, because it can open up a world of possibilities. In this case, a wood-look garage door offers a natural segue to start incorporating more natural elements, and gives a way for the home to enter into a new century while keeping to its structural history. Can you see natural stone pathways, symmetrical planters on either side of the garage, natural wooden shutters (or no shutters at all), a tasteful dark teal front door, and upright, dwarf evergreens taking up some of the white space?

It's okay if you can't. We're here to help you see the big picture. And it all starts with your garage door.