A few months ago I found myself in the unexpected position of needing to buy a new garage door. "Unexpected" because the old one was just fine before it got hooked on the open tailgate of my car. Oops.

The cost to replace the cracked garage door panels was too close to the cost of a new door to justify the repair, so my husband and I came to the conclusion that we needed a new garage door.

It wasn't a purchase that I was excited about - I lumped buying a new garage door in with replacing our driveway, roof, or furnace – they're all things that need to be done at some point or another but they're not the most fun way to spend your money since the impact on your home isn't that huge.

Was I ever wrong. Our garage door purchase ended up making a huge impact on the appearance of our home!

Years before we found ourselves needing a new garage door, we had already added a second floor addition to our home and made several exterior improvements, including new shutters, a new front door, and a portico with copper roof. So the exterior appearance of our home had already changed pretty dramatically from this:

to this:

I thought that we had finished any remodeling that would improve our home's curb appeal and my original plan was to simply replace our garage door with one similar in appearance to our previous one. Then I foundClopay's Door Imagination System, which is an online tool that allows you to upload a picture of your home and see how different garage door styles look with it. I found this tool to be invaluable!

I was astounded at how much better our home looked when I added a row of decorative windows to the garage door and I ultimately decided on the style of our garage door based on my favorite virtual image.

There were certainly several other things I was also looking for in a garage door, including a good insulation value (which was particularly important because we have living space above the garage), a reputable brand, anexcellent warranty, and a reasonable price.

After doing my research and getting estimates from four garage door companies (which each sold different brands), I chose Clopay because their Coachman Collection carriage house style door had everything that I was looking for.

I couldn't be happier with our new garage door and with the huge difference it made to the curb appeal of our home! Every one of our neighbors has commented about how much they love the new door and how surprised they are at how much it changed the appearance of our house.

I'm certainly not a garage door expert but I did learn a lot in the process of researching and selecting our new garage door. I've put everything that I learned together to create an informative post with 10 tips for choosing the right garage door for your home.

I hope that my garage door shopping story and these tips are helpful when the time comes to replace your own garage door (and also hope that it's a planned event and not due to an oops like mine!).

About the author: Kris Jarrett is a design-loving bargain hunter and author of Driven by Décor, a site where she shares decorating inspiration, great buys, and DIY projects for turning your house into a stylish, welcoming home.

Now it’s your turn to try on a new garage door. 

READ MORE ABOUT GARAGE DOOR MAKEOVERS:

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- Pinterrific Garage Door Makeover Inspiration

- Five Inspiring Garage Door Makeovers

- Garage Door Makeovers - Done In A Day!

- Garage Door Makeover Results Reveal