Have you ever admired a coffee table cleverly fabricated using a discarded door sitting on a frame? Or been surprised by the sight of an old refrigerator reborn as a bookshelf or TV cabinet? Even bathroom fixtures have been known to draw notice (and a snicker or two) when repurposed as garden containers.
A growing number of homeowners are taking utilitarian home elements and transforming them with creative flair into stunning home designs. Even the venerable garage door is experiencing new life as interior room dividers, exterior walls and other purposes yet to be discovered.
“Many homeowners are opening their homes to the great outdoors by using garage doors instead of sliding glass doors,” says Vickie Lents, director of marketing for Entrematic, a leading company in the garage door industry known for smart innovation and design.“It’s a particularly popular trend in coastal and mountain areas where the outdoor views are naturally incredible, allowing homeowners to enjoy the view from indoors as well as outdoors.”
In addition to providing great views of the outdoors, using garage doors as exterior walls also provides the added benefit of offering a cross-breeze through the home in temperate climates. For many months of the year, a garage door that opens to the exterior can save on cooling costs. After all, when you think about it, a garage door that opens to the exterior serves as an enormous window.
Garage doors with clear glass held in place by an aluminum grid system are the common standard in residential applications. Homeowners gravitate to glass garage doors when used as exterior and interior walls because of their clean, modern look.
For interior use of garage doors, many architects and homeowners prefer using garage doors without electronic motors, which can be unsightly when suspended from the door’s track system. Now, they can choose a track-less, spring-less and rail-less garage door system with an integrated opener for a state-of-the-art solution for the home: the Silvelox Trento Collection distributed by Entrematic.
Unlike traditional garage doors that operate via a series of springs, rails and tracks along the ceiling that can be cumbersome on the interior of a home, the Trento Collection of garage doors showcase revolutionary technology and Italian design, featuring a patented overlap design that allows the door to open by folding neatly in half without any ceiling hardware. This innovative design eliminates all the clutter behind a typical garage door and allows for a clean interior space, perfect when the door is connected to interior home living spaces.
Whether they feature a modern or traditional operating system, garage doors can serve as more than windows to divide indoor living space from the outside. Interior designers and homeowners have gravitated toward the trend of using garage doors to divide room space as well. Particularly when used as interior room dividers, garage doors with frosted or tinted glass offer privacy when closed but can be opened to create expansive indoor space.
“Garage doors make such a statement when incorporated into home designs. There’s instant intrigue and excitement when guests see them,” Lents says. “The doors are practical in function and offer the ‘wow factor’ that homeowners want.”
