My first client! Garage door #2

So after I finished my own garage door a friend had mentioned it to one of her classmates who was also upgrading their first home on a budget & happened to live in my neighborhood. I wish I had a before pic of their house, it started out with a similar color scheme to mine - cream with sea-foam green trim. I don't know if one painter booked jobs in our entire neighborhood back in the 80's or what. Anyway, they painted their house this deep charcoal gray with a crisp white trim & wanted to do something other than just a plain painted garage door. After checking out my door they decided to go with the same idea. Only they wanted to go with a color that matched their front door. I have to give April (also my client's name) credit for doing all the color research on her own. She was smart in going with a color that was very close to an unstained natural wood (shown here). She used Behr Exterior Flat Medium Base Mate in "Sand Point" for the base coat. I went over after it had dried to apply the stain.

This is the color we came out with when it was done - almost an exact match to her front door! Again, April (the homeowner) chose the stain color; Varathane Gel Stain in "Ipswich Pine". We started with a sample board to see how close to the front door this stain color came out. Once April decided that she liked it we got to work with some over sized soft bristle brushes. That's right she helped me do the entire door, luckily for me she took right to it & did an awesome job! April & her husband are total DIYers & the amount of work they've done by themselves is amazing. We randomly alternated panels so that you wouldn't notice a difference between one side of the door or the other.

A little bit closer shot of the texture - sorry these pics are kind of small this was the best I could do. This door actually had a"wood grain" impression in the fiberglass. I wasn't sure how the stain would take to it, we just went with the "grain" & it came out perfectly.

The final shot is a view from the street & was meant to show how close in color the 2 doors are, because the front door is in a shaded area, you can't really tell but believe me it's CLOSE! The pics also look a little more reddish here than it does in person. I have to say, I usually lean towards darker stains myself, but this was the perfect color choice to warm up that deep charcoal. Just imagine how awesome it'll look when they get all the new landscaping in! I learned so much doing this door, it was a lot easier than I had first expected. Can't wait for the next one!


And to the Montgomerys- Thank you for being so awesome & easy to work with!!!