The Clever Way Dave And Jenny Marrs Disguise The Door To A Garage

The door to your garage, which could be in your home's kitchen, dining room, or living room, may be an eyesore. Perhaps it's taking away from the elegant feel of the space, or maybe it's on a wall that throws the room off balance and takes away the symmetrical feel of the design. The latter problem was what Dave and Jenny Marrs had to deal with in Season 2, Episode 7 of "Fixer to Fabulous," as the garage door (which they added) was to the right of a centered fireplace and took away from this beautiful focal point.

To fix this issue, Dave and Jenny disguised the garage door with skinny, vertical wood slats, which were installed on both sides of the fireplace. "The slats also provided a seamless camouflage for what would have otherwise been an awkward door leading to the garage, a feature [the homeowner] Jessica wanted and that the house lacked," Jenny writes on their blog, Dave and Jenny Marrs."We were excited to show them a virtually hidden door!"

If your garage door is next to a fireplace, you could flank the statement piece with wooden planks. Another option is to install this feature wall along an entire surface or on just a portion of the wall to conceal the door. To do so, you'll need to first paint the wall behind the wooden slats black. Then, measure the height and width of your wall and purchase narrow planks at about the right size, which you can cut, sand, and stain as needed. 

Arrange the wooden planks how you want them to be installed, cutting the boards around the door so that it can still open and close with ease. "We took each board, numbered the boards, so the grain — everything on each board — matched perfectly," Dave says, per Realtor.com. Finally, once the black paint is fully dry, attach the boards with a brad nailer, using a level so that they're straight and a spacer to keep all the gaps even.

If you're considering adding this feature to your own home, first know that it has a mid-century modern appearance. Because of this, it looks great in historical homes that were built from the '40s to the '60s or in homes that are clearly emulating the look of this time period. You could also add other elements that add to this style, which Dave and Jenny Marrs do by painting the red brick fireplace black. "The wall of vertical wood slats played up the mid-century design and, most importantly, centered the fireplace, giving the symmetry needed to make it the focal point of the room," Jenny writes on Dave and Jenny Marrs. "Painting black over the original brick gave just the right contemporary look against the dark grain."

Another benefit of this feature wall is that the vertical planks carry the eye upwards, which makes the ceilings feel larger. And, even though the brick is black and the wood is dark, the rest of the walls are white, which brightens the space. This feature wall makes the home a perfect place to entertain guests, as it looks beautiful and is so functional with a working fireplace and a hidden garage door.