Transform Your Metal Garage Door with GarageSkins (Almost)

We’ve got an old metal garage door on a house we’re flipping and wanted to spruce it up without replacing the whole thing. Painting it would be an obvious solution, but I was searching for something a bit more unique.

In doing so, I found a start-up from a few years back that created some pretty cool ‘skins’ that transform standard metal garage doors into fairly realistic-looking wooden garage doors, despite the obvious gaps and shadows where the skins (or panels) meet. You’ll see what I mean in some of the pics and the video below.

Now, these aren’t printed stick-on vinyl decals—they’re real wood veneers. The veneers are vat-dyed to mimic a variety of wood species. The company says that the dyeing process ensures that the color penetrates all the way through the veneer ensuring consistent color even if scratched later down the road. They’re held in place using neodymium magnets (you know them as “rare-earth” magnets), which are super-strong.

The product is called GarageSkins. Unfortunately, and as of April 2018, it appears that the company is currently seeking further investment and the product itself is not yet available to the general public.????

It also looks like they are several hundred thousand dollars short of their $435k crowdfunding goal, with only about two months remaining. We’re not sure how that will impact their go-to-market strategy, but we hope it works out for them. You can stay up-to-date on the GarageSkins product release by joining their email list.

Update

In January 2020, we reached out to GarageSkins founder, Rick Medlen, to see where the company was in terms of launching the product, since this page see thousands of visits each month, resulting in a ton of email inquiries. Rick says that there are thousands of people on the waiting list and that the product will start shipping “later this year.”

So, even though they’re not available for purchase, GarageSkins look like a pretty cool way to [eventually] transform your old, ugly metal garage door. Plus, the name is cool.

For now the other option we have is with the following product:

Giani Wood Look Paint Kit for Garage Doors (English Oak)
  • From cold, plain white or simple solid, paint your garage door to look like wood in a...
  • The Giani Wood Look Paint Kit is a simple, two-step application that will transform...
  • Giani Wood Look Paint is a Water-Based Acrylic, Safe, Low on Odor and VOCs, but designed...
  • Each kit contains: Two 16 oz. Giani English Oak Wood Tone Base Coat, Two 16 oz. Giani...
  • Add instant curb appeal to your home in just 3 hours with Giani Wood Look Paint Kits!
Wood Look Paint Kit for Garage Doors (Royal Mahogany)
  • From cold, plain white or simple solid, paint your garage door to look like wood in a...
  • The Giani Wood Look Paint Kit is a simple, two-step application that will transform...
  • Giani Wood Look Paint is a Water-Based Acrylic, Safe, Low on Odor and VOCs, but designed...
  • Each kit contains: Two 16 oz. Giani Royal Mahogany Wood Tone Base Coat, Two 16 oz. Giani...
  • Add instant curb appeal to your home in just 3 hours with Giani Wood Look Paint Kits!

Below is a video promo from GarageSkins showing the product and installation, followed by some images of finished installations.

Forty-something years later, Chad still doesn't' know what he wants to do if he grows up. Raised around cars and trained in diesel mechanics, Chad has owned a successful detail shop, developed and sold software, led a K-9 SAR team, ridden the dot-com wave as a marketing & PR executive, led digital strategy teams at both large and small agencies, and now this. He digs Jeeps, off-road racing, football, photography, writing, making EDM, cranking metal, PC gaming, and a plethora of other contradictory things.