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I am building a new home and wanted to customize my ordinary garage doors with a wood veneer to make them look like carriage doors. I have a three car garage and know that these doors can cost upwards of $5,000 apiece. Sorry, don’t have an extra $15,000 for garage doors.
I was planning to plane some cedar down to 1/2″ or so and attach on door. I wanted to get some input as to the best way to attach the wood. I am using a metal insulated garage door as the base. I don’t really want any screws or nails to show on the outsdie. At this point I am leaning towards a gorilla glue to attach them.
If anyone has any ideas on this subject, I would be most appreciative of your help.
Thanks,
C. Dowling
Replies
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I am building a new home and wanted to customize my ordinary garage doors with a wood veneer to make them look like carriage doors. I have a three car garage and know that these doors can cost upwards of $5,000 apiece. Sorry, don't have an extra $15,000 for garage doors.
I was planning to plane some cedar down to 1/2" or so and attach on door. I wanted to get some input as to the best way to attach the wood. I am using a metal insulated garage door as the base. I don't really want any screws or nails to show on the outsdie. At this point I am leaning towards a gorilla glue to attach them.
If anyone has any ideas on this subject, I would be most appreciative of your help.
Thanks,
C. Dowling
Did you ever end up doing this? Love to know/see how it turned out!
David
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to do a carriage-style door veneer, but ended up with a whole different approach. It's what's known as trompe l'oeil, a graphic art term meaning "fool the eye." It sounds tacky, but it's a respected technique that has been used for centuries to create interior illusions. What I did, then, was paint a picture of an old garage door on the flat surface of the simple overhead unit I owned. Once you choose the logical position of the sun to create shadow lines, it comes together quickly. In my case, it worked great, and that's despite the fact that the door is only a few feet from the street; if you have more setback, it would be even more successful. The problem with doing a real veneer is twofold: weight and stability. When I added up what even a thin veneer would add to the heft of the door, I was amazed. And it's no secret that wood and steel just don't behave the same way in terms of expansion, contraction, and weather in general. I had given up when I saw an article in a magazine about interior trompe l'oeil techniques. Again, a faux (there's a hell of a lot of French in this, isn't there?) garage door may sound unappealing, but when you get down to it, the wood veneer is a fake in the first place. If you're not artistically gifted, I'm sure you could hire an art student who could do a great job.
Hey, we don't need no stinkin' frencies around here! Ya better use good old 'merican words, or we'll turn you in to Ashcroft!
A little more to the point (:-)) I've considered putting molding on our hardboard door to make it look a little nicer. The door's so heavy anyway a little more wouldn't make any difference, and it appears that if I stayed thinner than an inch or so it would clear the top jamb with no problem. The only reason I haven't done it (besides laziness) is that the door hardware is wearing out and we'll probably get a new door when we replace the hardware.
Before I got the energy to do the whole painting job, I tried just a vertical line down the middle of the plain door and then added three black hinges (scavenged from some crossbuck storm doors) on each side and a couple of ad-libbed handles on either side of the vertical line. That alone did wonders to give an old-fashioned look to the plain door. But once I saw that article on trompe l'oeil projects, I had to try the whole thing. It was a lot of fun and didn't take all that long.
I am about to give this a try as well. I was thinking of using Smart Trim to get some dimensional stability and polyurethane construction adhesive. I also talked to the installer a bit and he upped the openers to deal with the added weight. He also set the tracks back a bit further than normal so the added depth of the door would clear the top of the opening. I'm concerned about keeping the trim in place while the adhesive sets and have thought about small trim nails or the opposite approach and use carriage bolts right through the door and make it feature instead of a flaw. :-)
Like Chris, I would like to hear if anyone out there has tried this.
I would think that glue used on formica countertops would work out great. Maybe not if the door gets lots of sun...any ideas???
In the end, I used Smarttrim and heavy wood screws with fender washers from the inside. I think it came out pretty well. I ended up not using adhesive because if the wood ever did warp, it would be a nightmare trying to repair it. This way, the worst possible case is that I have small holes in the door.
Friend of ours did this several years back on his home in Rollingwood. Used cedar fencing and held the boards in place with hot glue while the epoxy dried. He must have done this at least 5 years ago and as far as I know, the door still functions well & looks great.
Here's the final result. Picture 1 is the garage done but not stained or with carriage doors, picture 5 is stained and finished carriage doors. The door installation crew said they really the end result when they came out to finish the weather stripping and fine tuning the lift.
Great ideas, We will be starting to work on the garage soon...We are
plastering the Dome room now.
Rob