Synopsis: Just as garage doors are taking up an ever-larger share of homes’ façades, old sectional garage doors have undergone a collective face-lift. This article will show you the garage door options now available in wood, cellular PVC, steel, glass, and composite, as well as types of door construction, along with the pros and cons of each. A sidebar covers options such as windows, insulation, operators, installation, and safety considerations, See how the new garage doors can boost your home’s curb appeal for a relatively small outlay.

There’s no denying the convenience of overhead garage doors. But their standard motif—a field of rectilinear panels, sometimes with a row of windows across the top—is as bland as it is architecturally out of place on many houses. “At their best, these doors are unimaginative,” says Denver architect Doug Walter. “At their worst, they look like 1950s suburban fantasies tacked onto Tudor, Victorian, and colonial houses.”

But just as garage doors are taking up an everlarger share of our homes’ façades—to the point where some houses have become what Walter calls “a garage with a house attached”—those old sectionals have undergone a collective face-lift. More than 99 percent of today’s garage doors follow the midcentury sectional design, but fewer and fewer look the part. Many of today’s sectional garage doors aptly mimic the handcrafted swing-out and slider types you see on old carriage houses or on the detached garages of the pre-World War II era. It’s only at the push of a button—or on close inspection—that their true nature is revealed.

Replace your garage door, and you’ll see how just a few hours of on-site work and a relatively modest outlay can yield an incalculable boost in curb appeal. You can spend big, choosing a door from a custom wood shop that will run you $3,000 or more, but you don’t have to. These days, just about every major garage door manufacturer sells “carriage house” doors as stock items, costing $500 to $1,000 each.

And that’s a bargain considering what you get in return. In addition to a major aesthetic upgrade, a better-insulated garage door translates to energy savings if your garage is adjacent to or underneath your living space. And because new doors come with fresh tracks, springs, and operators, life with new doors will probably be much quieter. If you’re replacing a door and operator that are more than 20 years old, you’ll also be adding to your family’s safety. Since 1993, garage doors have been required to include an automatic reverse that kicks in if the door hits anything on the way down and a sensor that won’t let it close if something’s in its path.

Construction basics

High-end garage doors consist of two main elements: the sections (typically three or four horizontal pieces hinged together) and the overlay, a decorative face that gives the door its style. Good- and better-quality doors have sections built of wood or steel that include a “sandwich” of foam insulation; economy doors, including stamped steel “pan” doors and wooden “panel” doors, have no overlay or added insulation. In the case of overlay doors, the overlaid design separates as the sections roll up, but the horizontal joints should be imperceptible when the door is closed. In carriage-house-style doors, a vertical shadow line, or indentation, at the center creates the illusion of a pair of out-swinging doors.

For more photos and details on building a better garage door, click the View PDF button below.