Finding the Perfect Palette for Your Primary Portal
Garage doors don’t get enough press. Despite the fact that your garage door is the biggest entrance to your home, you’re probably more likely to devote time and energy to sprucing up your front door or futzing with your landscaping. While these are noble pursuits, you can’t neglect the visual impact of your garage. This leads to an important question: Should you use bright colors and flashy designs to set apart your garage door or stick with muted tones that stress its functionality?
Keep Your Door Tones Similar to Your House Tones
It’s no secret that most homes in the Portland area use relatively muted or natural tones that blend in well with our lush environment. As a rule, it’s a good idea to keep the color of your garage door close to that of your home’s exterior without mirroring it exactly. This allows for some visual continuity between the sides and front of your house without taking anything away from its other parts.
Pay Attention to the Trim
Like your home’s interior moldings, your garage door’s trim is a critical component of its overall aesthetic. Use a color that closely matches the color of the rest of the door as well as that of the home’s exterior walls. In practice, this creates a “tri-color” arrangement that naturally leads visitors’ eyes from one place to the next.
Set It Apart from Other Entry Points
It might seem like a minor detail, but your garage door should never be the same color as your front door. After all, you want to create an aesthetic distinction between your much larger garage door and your much more symbolically important front door. Visitors and neighbors will appreciate the contrast.
Multicolor Doors Work in Certain Situations
Note that we say “certain situations.” While homes that feature multiple exterior paint colors may benefit from a multicolored door, monochrome homes generally look too “busy” with multi-hued garage portals. One exception to this rule involves brick homes: If your home’s exterior is mostly or completely comprised of brick, a two-tone garage door may actually bring out the brick’s natural attributes.
Need a New Garage Door? Overhead Door Company of Portland is Here to Help
We hope you’ve come away from this post with a few ideas about how to decorate—and distinguish—your garage door. Whether you choose bright colors, earthy tones or something in between, we’re confident that you’ll settle on a selection that does your home proud.
