It's Not Your Father's Garage Door

It's Not Your Father's Garage Door

(ARA) - In the "Leave it to Beaver" era, garage doors were little more than heavy slabs of wood that sealed a garage shut from the elements. White. Heavy. And mostly flat. Little had changed to garage doors by the time the "Brady Bunch" arrived in the 1970s or even the "Cosby" generation years later.

But would the style-driven "Desperate Housewives" of Wisteria Lane be content with a garage door that satisfied June Cleaver? Not a chance. Garage door manufacturers realized a few years ago that it was time for garage doors to join the ranks of kitchens, baths, lighting and other home accessories as statements of personal style and fashion.

"Regardless of the architecture of your home, today's garage doors come in a wide range of styles, colors and materials to complement any home's architectural style," says Vickie Lents of Amarr Garage Doors. "It's easier than ever before to find a garage door that says, 'you.'"

Lents said that Amarr, a garage door company that blazed the trail in terms of architectural options, began offering carriage house steel doors when the company introduced its Classica Collection in 2004.

"Beginning as early as the 1990s, manufacturers and dealers offered carriage house looks by decorating garage doors with magnetic material, wood molding and even PVC molding added to flat panel doors to give them carriage house style elements," she says. "While visually pleasing initially, homeowners experienced long-term quality and durability issues. Everyday usage and changing weather conditions caused adherence problems with the combinations of materials."

The first generation of architecturally styled carriage house doors was solid wood doors, but most of those were initially used in affluent, more expensive homes. Amarr capitalized on the carriage house style trend started in wood doors and applied it to more affordable 100 percent steel doors. The conversion to traditional paneled steel garage doors began in the late 1970s, but the use of stamped steel carriage house elements didn't evolve until much more recently.

"Sectional steel doors offer the stylish carriage house look and are affordable to a broad range of home buyers," Lents adds. "Amarr's Classica line of stamped steel carriage house doors has been hugely successful since we introduced it three years ago. Like wood doors, steel doors can be custom painted to coordinate with any house, but, unlike their wooden cousins, steel doors are much lighter and require less maintenance. In addition, the stamped steel carriage house doors move up and down like typical garage doors but appear like they swing open for an authentic carriage house style."

The trend for garage door fashion also applies to decorative accents. No longer are garage doors completely flat. Today, homeowners want strap hinges, handles and decorative windows on their garage doors. Amarr recently introduced a faux ornamental wrought iron collection of garage door windows inspired by European Old World architecture.

"Ornamental wrought iron designs continue to be important style design elements in homes today -- on both the inside with cabinet hardware and on the outside with wrought iron railings, fences, gates and entry doors," says Lents. "Our wrought iron DecraGlass garage door windows complement the design elements of homes and enhance the curb appeal with a beautiful, distinct look."

In addition to more style options for garage doors, sizes of doors are changing as well. For years, the standard garage door has been 16 feet wide by 7 feet tall, and most garages had two car bays. With today's larger vehicles and multi-car families, the standards are being rewritten. Increasingly, homeowners and developers are ordering special, oversized garage doors and in quantities of three or four doors for a single home.

And what would June Cleaver have to say about all this? "Ward, put the Hummer in bay three for the night."

Courtesy of ARAcontent