What to do when you back into your Crystal Lake garage door

It takes a few seconds for it to sink in, for you to realize it can’t be undone. You’ve backed into the garage door of your Crystal Lake home and the question now is how much damage was done and what to do next?

The first consideration, of course, is whether everyone is okay. This may or may not include your psychological disposition at the moment. The next question is whether you can or should move the car.

Depending on how much damage you’ve done, parts of the garage door could come crashing down if you move the car. You should carefully check the rollers to ensure they’re still in their tracks. Check the door panels to make sure they’re still connected. From a distance, look at the spring(s) to ensure they’re safely connected (those springs have enough strength to seriously injure or kill someone). You also want to check that the garage door opener is still securely mounted and won’t fall on your or the car.

Additionally, you may want to take a photo or two for the insurance company before you move the car away from your Crystal Lake garage door.

If you’re not sure it’s safe to move the car, don’t. Call in garage door repair professionals to make that call and to safely move the vehicle.

Now, assuming you’ve called your insurance provider (auto/home/both?), it’s time to consider securing the garage and repairing the garage door.

Your garage door specialist may need to order panels and other parts to repair the garage door. This means that they won’t, necessarily, be able to repair the garage door immediately. In that case, it’s a question of securing the garage door until they can.

If there wasn’t too much damage done, it’s possible that the damaged garage door can adequately secure the garage until repairs are done. But, if too much damage was done, the garage door specialist may need to construct a plywood structure to temporary secure the garage. In either case, you may not be able to use the garage door until repairs are done.

Repairs may include replacing the entire Crystal Lake garage door. If this is the case, hopefully, your garage door was older to begin with. In either case, trust your insurance agent to help with the financial aspects of the incident. Trust your garage door technician to straighten out the garage door.

Oh, and don’t feel too bad about it; you’re not the first person to back into their garage door.

Garage doors offer aesthetic opportunities to increase curb appeal for Wonder Lake homeowners

This garage door in Wonder Lake offers an awesome
painted scene as the homeowners have made the most
of their flush garage door.

Garage doors are 7- or 8-feet high and 9- to 18-feet wide. Some Wonder Lake garages have two garage doors. That’s quite a bit of space and an opportunity for aesthetic enhancement and great curb appeal. But many owners of garages haven’t taken advantage of those opportunities.

Garage doors come in different styles and made of different materials. There are flush garage doors that are designed to look like nothing more than a section of wall. There are other garage doors with framed panels. As for materials, some garages are wood, some are metal, and some are fiberglass. The latter are often made to look like wood.

A common garage door size in Wonder Lake is 8X16. That garage door offers 128-square feet of space. A home with two 8X10 garage doors offers 160-square feet of aesthetic opportunity. Any improvement has the potential to make a significant improvement in a Wonder Lake home’s curb appeal.

The aesthetic approach to a garage door can range from stri

ving to make it fade into the background – to be as unnoticeable as possible – to making it stand out while making a statement.

The Invisible Garage Door: this is the concept that the garage door should go as unnoticed as possible. Painting it the same color as the surrounding walls is the best way to achieve this effect. If it’s a flush panel door it may still standout. For instance, if the wall around the door is brick, unless you can give the door the appearance of brick (difficult to pull off), you can paint it the same color as the brick but it won’t be the same.

These homeowners have stained their garage door. The
result is absolutely fantastic.

If the walls have lap siding, once again, matching the walls will be difficult. Staying with the same color is probably the closest you’ll come to making the garage door disappear.

The Stand-Out Garage Door: rather than trying to hide the garage door, this is where you try to make the most of the garage door – to make it stand-out from the wall around it. Here, the options fall into two basic categories: accentuating the doors basic style or something more creative.

Accentuating the garage doors basic style might mean painting the framing on the panels and/or the panels themselves. It could mean staining a wooden garage door or painting a metal or fiberglass garage door to appear as though it’s stained wood.

Another option is to paint a scene or design on a garage door. In this case, a flush garage door may work best. The surface of the garage door is the canvas where you can do your magic.

Whatever you do to your Wonder Lake garage door, any improvement will improve your home’s curb appeal. That’s particularly important if you’re selling your home but nice even if you’re not leaving.