A garage door is built to a last a long time, but its life as a garage door will one day come to end.  However, that doesn't mean that its life has to come to an end.  There is another option! You can re-purpose your garage door.  

A quick search on the Internet will flood you with many ideas and the possibilities seem to be endless.  If your old door was made of steel, you can use the garage door sections to construct a raised garden or to frame an enclosure for a compost pile.  Type in "garage door raised garden" into your favorite search engine and you can pull up a number of plans. 

Back in the day, before they started using vinyl and steel, garage doors were made of fine quality woods like cherry, chestnut, and mahogany. Scrape and strip away the old paint and you are left with some beautiful wood.  If you are lucky enough, you may even find one crafted with beautiful designs carved in the wood.  Should you have one of these, sand it down, apply some stain or decorative paint and place it as your headboard.  To dress it up even more add some cloth accents. 

If the design matches the decor of your room, maybe all the garage door section needs is a little cleaning and you have yourself a headboard. The picture on the right shows a basic wood garage door panel, with the bolts still in the section.  

If you are somewhat handy, you can also cut down some wood door sections and construct a blanket chest, or a dressing screen.  Take it another step further and reuse the handle lock hardware for hooks to hang your clothes on. 

These projects are not necessarily for everyone, but it just goes to show how a little creativity can go a long way when it comes to reusing your old stuff. 

Do you have a clever or inventive reuse of your garage door?  Share in the comments below or email us a picture!