How to Hang Christmas Lights on Your Garage

Hanging Christmas lights around the garage door can be tricky.

When hanging Christmas lights around your garage door, stay safe and protect your home by using hooks and clips designed for the task. Follow basic safety tips for a worry-free holiday.

Don’t staple or nail to the trim

If you plan to attach lights directly to the trim, avoid using metal fasteners like staples or nails. They can damage insulation around the wiring, which can cause lights to fail and pose a fire and electrocution hazard.

Instead of attaching lights to the trim, use hooks and clips where the lights will hang. Gutter and roof clips are either pressed or nailed to the exterior of the home, not the trim. Have a hook at the bottom that holds the string. 

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Use clips for vertical lights

For vertical Christmas lights — lights hung along the sides of garage doors, for instance — look for trim clips that wrap around the cord and hold it in place. You can nail them in or attach them with an adhesive. Nailed clips are usually more secure.

Space the light clips about one foot apart. If you have an elaborate design above the garage, consider hanging lights from the top down. Otherwise, begin on one side of the garage and work your way around.

Safety ideas for hanging Christmas lights

Enlist a helper to hold the string of lights and keep it untangled. Place the cord in the hook or clip securely, making sure there's no potential for damaging the insulation or bulbs. Experts recommend connecting no more than three strings of lights end-to-end.

Once the lights are hung, plug them in and enjoy your hard work. If a string does not work, check the bulbs again and make sure strings are connected securely.

Don't try to attach nail-in hooks to the garage door panels. This will damage the panel and won't hold the lights very well. If you do damage a panel while hanging lights, look for a company that repairs single panels.

Consider hiring a professional

Too much work? Consider hiring a professional holiday decorator to make your garage door, entryway and other areas of your home more festive. Or look into having a handyman put your decorations up.

source:

https://www.angieslist.com/articles/how-hang-christmas-lights-your-garage.htm

Top 10 Preventive Maintenance Tips for Garage Door Owners

Your garage door is the largest moving part in your entire home, and is used multiple times per day at any hour and in all seasons. To keep your garage door operating smoothly for decades to come, it’s very important that you take the time to perform regular preventive care and maintenance. Here are 10 things that all homeowners can do:

1. Look and Listen

The most important preventive step you can take is to observe your garage door in action every time you use it. Is it moving smoothly or is it jerky in places? Does it operate silently or does it make grinding or scraping noises? Do both sides of the system (springs, pulleys and cables) look symmetrical?

2. Tighten up the Hardware

The average garage door moves up and down more than a thousand times a year. That’s a lot of movement and vibration, which can loosen the hardware. Examine and tighten all roller brackets and bolts with a socket wrench.

3. Test the Garage Door Balance

If your garage door is not properly balanced, the garage door opener will have to work harder, and it won’t last as long.

After you disconnect the opener by pulling the release handle (usually a red cord), manually move the door about halfway up. If it doesn’t stay put, the counterweight system (springs) are improperly balanced. Garage door spring adjustment is best left to the professionals.

4. Inspect and Replace the Rollers

The rollers, whether steel or nylon, need to be inspected twice a year and replaced every seven years or so, and even more if you use your garage door many times a day.

Worn, chipped or cracked rollers should be replaced as soon as possible. You do this by removing and reinstalling any roller brackets that are not directly attached to the cable system.

5. Replace the Weatherstripping

If the rubber weather seal strip on the bottom of your door is brittle or cracked, replace it right away to keep the elements out of your house. Weatherstripping is sold by the foot at hardware and home improvement stores. Just cut to size and insert into the grooves with the wide angle of the flange inside the door.

6. Lubricate the Moving Parts

Keeping your garage door parts greased up will add years of seamless operation to your system – and it takes just 10 minutes a year! Use white lithium grease on the opener’s chain or screw, and a spray lubricant, available from your garage door specialist, to coat the overhead springs.

7. Check the Cables

You should never tinker with the high-tension cables that lift your door because they have enough force to maim and kill. But you can check their condition so you know when to hire a pro. Check for broken strands and damage near the bottom roller bracket.

8. Test the Auto-Reverse Safety Features

There are two mechanisms: mechanical and photocell. In order to test the mechanical feature, place a piece of wood or a brick on the ground in the path of the door. When the door coming down touches that object, it should reverse direction and go back up again. To test the second, the photoelectric system with beams at each side, close your door and just pass your leg in the door’s path. Your door should reverse.

If your opener is more than 20 years old, it may lack this basic safety features – and so it’s time to buy a new garage door opener.

9. Clear the Tracks

Make sure the tracks on either side of the door are free from debris and, if you are so inclined, you can use a level to check the plumb. Any major adjustments to tracks must be done by a professional garage door technician.

10. Groom Your Garage Door

Don’t forget to examine the door itself. Wood doors will need to be checked for water damage and warp, as well as chipped and peeling paint. Steel doors may have rust spots that need to be sanded, primed and painted. Wash your garage door regularly with a mild all-purpose cleaner at the same time you do your car.

Remember, your garage door makes up about one-third of the exterior of your house, so keep it fresh and clean. If you don’t have time to do this kind of check-up, call a garage door professional to schedule a tune-up service call. He is going to fix all… perfectly!

source: http://www.garaga.com/blog/en/top-10-preventive-maintenance-tips-garage-door-owners/

5 IDEAS FOR DECORATING YOUR GARAGE DOORS FOR THE HOLIDAYS

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DECEMBER 6, 2012 BY ELIZABETH 2 COMMENTS

Now that we are in the midst of the holiday season it is time to start bringing out all those decorations collecting dust in their boxes in an effort to look festive.  The exterior of your home tends to get a little extra attention as that is what people see first whether just passing by or coming in for a visit. 

One of the most sadly neglected areas of the exterior of your house is the garage door.  Imagine strangers driving around looking at holiday decorations and checking out all the bare garage doors and suddenly they come across the stunning festive display covering your garage doors!  

You don’t have to go over the top in decorating, just a few simple touches can be enough to make your house really stand apart in a wonderful way!
Here are some ideas as to how you can “Wow” your neighbours by decorating your garage doors and improving your curb appeal over the holiday season!

 1) The easiest trick is to simply place a wreath in the middle of the garage door just as you would your front door.  You may want to find or make a much larger one for this purpose though. 

2) A large bow ribbon taped to the centre of the garage door with the ends radiating out towards the side of the door is also a nice look.

3)  If you have the ability to string lights and garland around your garage you can really make it stand out in a tasteful way!  Just frame the outside of the garage door with white or coloured lights, garland, or better yet a combination of the two

4)  Garage Door Magnets in Holiday Styles can be purchased at many retailers as well as online through Amazon.  There are many holiday-themed murals out there that come on a giant magnet that can be applied to your garage door

5)  Holiday themed Garage Door Murals are made ready to hang and are easy to simply take down and roll up for use year after year.

source: http://www.frugalmomeh.com/2012/12/5-ideas-for-decorating-your-garage.html

8 DIY GARAGE DOOR UPDATES

Written by Cass

On the list of the many necessary and not always pretty things in life, garage doors rank pretty high. I'd put them up there with laundry rooms, although laundry rooms have lots more options to update them! When it comes to curb appeal, there are plenty of ideas to start with, but a large feature like your garage door can really cramp your style if you're trying to really change up your home's exterior. But a boring garage door can still be remedied, and fairly inexpensively with these DIY garage door update ideas.

8 Ways to Give Your Garage Door a Makeover

Paint + Glaze

Larissa gave her garage door this faux wood carriage look using just paint! Tutorial here.

Gel Stain

You can use it on stairs and shutters… and also garage doors! Check it out at Domestically Speaking.

Wood Overlay

Even though it's been a few years, I still love this tutorial for adding wood to your garage door to make it look like a carriage door.

Faux Painted Hardware

A fancy look… for just a few bucks and some time to paint! Details here from Forever Decorating.

DIY Carriage Hardware

The Sunset Lane added new house numbers, and then used a free-or-cheap material to fake the look of carriage door straps — paint stir sticks!

Faux Painted Windows

Make the place feel cozier with faux garage door windows, like A Pinterest Addict painted.

Add Trim to Windows

Make the garage door windows into architectural features by adding trim to create additional panes

Pretty Handy Girl

4 Men 1 Lady

Paint + Wood

You coudl do this in a solid color or really any color you can dream up — General Splendourused a combination of lightweight wood planks and paint to update her garage door. PS: those windows are fake, too.

Coming up in #ShutTheFrontDoorDIY:

(be sure to subscribe by RSS or email to get updates for every post of Shut The Front Door DIY week)

Lots of ways to update flat doors 

source:

https://www.remodelaholic.com/diy-garage-door-updates/