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This was my first faux painting attempt. The doors were originally bright white steel. My goal was to make them look like wood. I am pretty happy with how the doors themselves are turning out (not quite done yet), but I'm not sure I like how they look on the house. I don't know if I just need some landscaping and window trimming to tie everything together or if the doors are just not right with my style house. I'm hoping it's the former...
First of all, great painting job! Very convincing, it does look like real wood. As far as suggestions--first I would make the two sets of garage windows match if you can rather than having different shapes. Then I think you need to get some more wood (or fake faux painted wood) in there to tie things together. Or other natural materials like stone would work too, but I think you need to incorporate more natural materials to really make the wood fit in, with the rest of the house being vinyl siding the wood look doors seem a little lonely. When I picture houses with the fancy wood garage doors, I picture things like a traditional brick colonial, or a Craftsman style with lots of natural materials, and your house doesn't have anything else but the garage doors. Maybe you could do some wood or wood-look shutters on the windows? Or else maybe make a nice wooden arbor or pergola in front of the house and grow some nice vines up it?
Thanks ecrane. The windows will definitely be the same when I'm done. I only put the window grids on one side so I could take a closeup of one of the doors. I agree with you about incorporating other natural elements. I am already envisioning a stone driveway...now to convince the hubby about this new unexpected expense! I have also considered shutters on the little window to the right of the doors - with the same faux painting as the garage doors. Of course, there will be plenty of landscaping to the right as well.
I know what you mean about wood doors usually being reserved for the fancy houses - which is why I'm worried now that nothing I do will make it look right. My house is simple. I am hoping I can dress it up just enough so that they don't seem out of place. But a stone driveway and "wood" shutters" is all I can think of...
I don't think it's just for fancy houses, although I guess it's usually the fancier ones that have more of the wood, stone, and other natural materials! But I think as long as you can incorporate some natural (or natural looking) materials, you can get it to look fine. Having some landscaping will really help with that too, nothing more natural than some nice plants! Maybe a nice flagstone path--I don't know where your front door is, but a stone path from the driveway over to the front door would look nice, or maybe just do some garden beds with stone edging in addition to some wood look shutters. I don't know if you're up for painting the house or not, but I wonder if maybe a different color on the house, something more earthy/neutral would help tie it together too? It looks like a pretty new paint job though so I don't know if you want to go changing that!
I've pretty much decided that I'm going to start over!! (Sometimes I am my own worst enemy, LOL ;o) After staring at it most of the evening, I concluded that the color of the doors simply does not go with the color of the siding. Unfortunately, the siding is new (this part of the house is a brand new addition still under construction) and it's vinyl, so there's no changing it or painting it. I picked my colors for the door by taking paint samples over to the cabinet section of Lowes and pulling out the colors in the wood grain of a finished cabinet. This time, I will take a piece of the siding as well and see what wood finishes look good with the siding and then match my colors to that finish.
I'm not really looking forward to redoing it - it was a lot of work - but I'm a glutton for punishment...
I wouldn't redo the door--the colors don't clash or anything, I think if you get some other natural materials in there to blend in with the wood it'll start to look more pulled together. I think your faux wood looks great, I wouldn't get rid of it, at least give yourself a little more time to add things like shutters, landscaping, then if you still don't like it you can paint over it. But I definitely wouldn't give up yet!
no, no, no, don't redo! I have kinda been watching this thread and first, you must tell me how you did the doors. I myself am the same way. Kinda martha stewartish but never satisfied. Painted my living room like 6 times. Finally picked a color and 6 months later, I am rethinking it again. However, your doors look great. I agree with ecrane3. The problem isn't the doors or even the house. It is all in the details. Here are my suggestions, not that I am an expert, but here goes. First, what is the ground to the right in the picture...concrete or dirt or what? I can't really tell. Anyway, maybe if possible get a planting area in there, maybe raised with the sides made of dark wood. Something that looks a little higher end to match the doors but ties in the wood theme. Also, the black trim around and through the windows on the right is throwing it off. Maybe paint those little cross bars in the window and the trim around it white to match the garage door. That black or dark color is really throwing off the balance. The whole thing is the balance and because those doors are 'wood' and are so large, you simply have to repeat the wood somewhere else for balance. I would do a raised planter maybe in a rectangular shape somewhere to the right. Maybe add a trellis or something. I would stick to more natural materials, maybe put some rocks in my garden. My personal taste would be to do a mild Japanese/natural theme in the plantings but don't go overboard. Think understated, Japanese, natural. I also think the natural color of your home and the wood look good together and would look well with the stuff I mentioned. It is just the black throwing you off and you need to repeat the wood somewhere to the right. If you can imagine if you painted your living room salmon then just put in one couch and one table, then the salmon would be overwhelming. Once you put in more stuff to balance it, it could look nice and would tone it down. (Don't ever paint your living room salmon though and I won't either.) Great job you did, now you must tell me how you did it.
Hey, another idea. You don't even really have to do a stone driveway. maybe you could do like a 1 foot stone edge to either side of the driveway. I have seen where people do it with brick trim on both sides to outline it. Or maybe even get some of those landscape timbers and kind of outline either side so it looks like a little path sort of. Then you could plants some plants all along there on the other side of the timbers and throw in a big rock here and there. I don't think you have to go ripping out the whole driveway. I try to work with what I have because my hubby would kill me if I even suggested a new driveway right after we already got new siding. I think you are very creative and can do wonders with a little more creativity. I think you are stumped right now but I would not change it at all. Just add to it to complete the look.
I haven't redone it yet. I still might, but I figured I'd try some of the suggestions here first and give it a couple weeks.
The addition is still under construction so the driveway and landscaping are a blank canvas (read dirt). I like the suggestion of edging the driveway in stone. We were originally going to go with crushed stone for the driveway - perhaps I'll stick with that and try edging it with some nice flagstone.
The dark brown trim of the windows has been bothering me too - problem is it's not trim, but the aluminum frame of the window itself. The windows are brand new so hubby is really resisting the idea of trying to paint them. He has agreed to trim the windows which I'll paint the same off-white as all the other trim. I don't know if that will make the dark brown less 'offensive', but we'll start there. Perhaps if that doesn't help he'll agree to let me paint.
Here's what I did for the doors.
Base coat - an orangy-yellow color called "apple crisp". This was both a primer and paint.
Then I took my brown paint, mixed with glaze (3 parts glaze, 1 part paint), and started creating a wood grain look.
I tried to make sure the grain always went in the direction it would really go if the door was wood (for example, horizontal pieces got horizontal "grain", vertical get vertical grain). There really wasn't much of a science to it - I just kind of made some "boards" darker than others, varied the patterns on the "boards". I mostly used a paint brush, occasionally I used a wet rag to wipe off some of the paint, but always went back over it with a brush because the brush provided a more realistic pattern than a rag. Most importantly, I didn't get the final look in one pass. The first pass was rough - lots of contrast between the dark brown and gold color. Once it was mostly dry, I went back over it until the gold was muted enough and the variations in the browns were to my liking. I regularly stepped back to see it from a distance as I was working. The two base coats took no time at all - painting on all the layers of brown took about 6 hours of constant painting.
I got most of my tips from one website. I can't seem to find it here at work, but I have it bookmarked at home. I'll forward the link later.
I think its awsome. I'd leave it, but maybe do the windows the same color and maybe add shutters to the small window and paint them the same as the garage doors.
thanks for the tips on how you did it. I've been thinking of doing my steel front entry door like that but never had the nerve to actually try it.
