We've explored the financial advantages for upgrading your garage door as well the abundance of new designs and materials available, so now it's time to start shopping for a garage door.
Your local Home Depot can be an easy place to start your search but we recommend visiting a garage door showroom. Clopay Garage Doors gave us a peek into one of their showrooms, where the salespeople are trained solely on the design, construction and functionality of garage doors. Once you decide on a garage door they will make sure that installation goes smoothly and that all of your questions are answered.
What's great about Clopay's dealer showroom is that you can see the their full-lineup of garage door designs and in many cases you can view a full-size version of the door. They will also have all color and material swatches and with their trained eye they will be able to assist you in choosing a door style that works best with your home.
We recommend bringing a photo of your home showing your garage door with you when you visit a showroom. This will help you and the salesperson know exactly what type of door your home requires in regards to fit and style.
If you don't have a dealer showroom near you or you prefer to shop online, Clopay has just launched a Door Imagination System that allows you to upload a photo of your home to "try on" various garage door and entry doors designs to find a perfect fit. With over 1,000 different garage door designs in wood, steel, aluminum, composite and glass, there is bound to be more than one that will work for you.
It took two minutes to go through the step-by-step process and we started with a simple photo of our garage door.
We've been sharing our favorite home improvement apps for a few years so we decided to compile them into a helpful guide that is categorized according to your home improvement needs. Many of these apps are available for your iPhone, Blackberry or Droid device and some are even tablet ready so they'll work on your iPad or Galaxy.
As new apps are developed daily please let us know in the comments if we missed your favorite and we will continue to update this list on a regular basis. Bookmark this page for future reference.
Now onto the Best Home Improvement Apps.
Design
The GE Mood Lighting Cam app
Snap a photo of a room or area in your home, and load it into the app. Using a sliding scale, you can adjust the room's lighting from "cozy" to "intimate" to "dramatic," along with a few stops in between. Once you've found a lighting scheme you like, touch the "Create This Mood" button, select the applicable light fixtures and you'll be taken to GE product recommendations that will allow you to simulate the lighting effects.
Sherwin-Williams Colorsnap
Will help to answer what color do I need for my room
Benjamin Moore Color Capture
Capture images and apply Benjamin Moore's color pallete
Dream Home
Keep up with the latest home design trends, browse through tons of quality images and draw inspiration from the works of the professional interior designers from around the globe.
Home Interior Ideas
Photos of home interiors for inspiration
With the continued popularity of smart phones and tablets, it seems like there's a new app every few days. The latest must-have download? The GE Mood Lighting Cam app, a clever invention from the renowned lighting company.
Snap a photo of a room or area in your home, and load it into the app. Using a sliding scale, you can adjust the room's lighting from "cozy" to "intimate" to "dramatic," along with a few stops in between. Once you've found a lighting scheme you like, touch the "Create This Mood" button, select the applicable light fixtures and you'll be taken to GE product recommendations that will allow you to simulate the lighting effects.
If you'd rather take your lighting inspiration from another source, the app comes with a library of pre-loaded rooms, ranging from bathrooms to living rooms, that showcase a variety of lighting schemes. As with the pictures you upload, you can opt to "Create The Mood" and have a list of products that will create the same lighting scheme.
With the conditions of real estate today it remains very much a "buyer's market," yet that doesn't mean it is easy to actually be a buyer. But Long & Foster Real Estate, the largest independently-held residential real estate firm in the country might just have a way of making it a bit simpler to find that dream home. The company has announced the release of its iPhone/iPad apps.
From the palm of the handheld users can use this free downloadable app to search listings anywhere and more importantly anytime. Customers can search for nearby properties, refining searches based on property type, price range, number of bedrooms and other "must have" desires for their dream home. The app can be set to notify users whenever a property matching the search criteria comes on the market.
Plus users can save notes, photos and even videos about their favorite properties, while retrieving information about the demographics of the neighborhood including population characteristics, education and even average income of local residents, along with school date - both public and private.
