Contemporary Garage Door Styles

What is a Modern Style Garage Door?

Modern or contemporary style garage doors have clean lines and simple details, in contrast to more traditional or carriage house designs that feature raised panels with beveled edges, decorative overlays and lots of ornamentation.

Modern doors often have clean horizontal or vertical flush panels in subtle earthy colors intended to blend into a home’s exterior. While that can be a preferred aesthetic, there are many ways to enhance a contemporary door design.

One option is with windows. While there are residential modern garage doors without windows, many of these doors use glass to elevate the look and bring natural light into the garage. For homes that use windows as a major design feature, adding windows to the garage door brings cohesion and flow.

Another way to enhance modern garage door designs is with color. While some homeowners don’t like to call attention to the garage, others see it as a way to make a bold or dramatic color statement or add texture to their exterior.

Clopay offers Color Blast® factory-painting on over 1,500 Sherwin Williams paint shades. There are new choices for steel door models including the Lustra low-gloss matte finish or Ultra-Grain® Plank, a printed horizontal plank design with a stained wood-look appearance.

Clopay Contemporary Garage Door Styles

When describing modern residential garage doors, the terms “modern” and “contemporary” are often used interchangeably, which is fine. Modern technically refers to an architectural era while contemporary is what is currently in use or popular at the moment. As preference for modern design continues to grow, so does demand for residential modern garage doors.

Modern garage doors from Clopay combine quality craftsmanship with sleek, contemporary designs to fit any preference. You can enjoy stunning finishes on materials like steel, wood and aluminum, plus benefit from customization with window layouts, specialty glass treatments and color options.

There are a range of insulation options so you can enjoy the benefits of improved energy efficiency and strength alongside your door's contemporary design.

Explore our modern garage door models, their stylish features and the construction that makes them last.

Modern Garage Door Materials

Modern garage doors are made in a variety of materials, each one offering unique benefits in terms of durability, design flexibility, and visual appeal.

Steel Garage Doors: Known for their durability and low maintenance requirements as well as their exceptional strength, steel doors are also highly customizable, with options for different panel designs, colors, and textures and windows. Let your creativity flow as you design a door with or without grooves, add square, rectangular or contemporary slim windows in a unique layout, or keep it sleek with a solid flush panel motif. Finish off the design with a bold color or a wood-look paint finish for added warmth and texture.

Composite Garage Doors: Faux wood garage doors combine realistic wood textures with key elements of contemporary architecture: clean, horizontal lines with mid-century appeal, sleek windows and metallic accents. The insulated doors are constructed in a durable, low-maintenance composite material that resists rot and weathering, making them an excellent choice any climate. They are available in a variety of styles and paint or stain finishes, so you can enjoy the look of real wood without the upkeep.

Aluminum and Glass Garage Doors: Outfitted with large glass panels and prized for their modern details, aluminum and glass garage doors let natural light flood into the garage, creating a bright and inviting atmosphere. Homeowners can customize the level of privacy and visibility with different glass options including clear, frosted, tinted, mirrored and opaque. Primarily used for aesthetic purposes, glass garage doors are low-maintenance, durable and resistant to breakage, thanks to their tempered glass construction and weather-resistant aluminum frame.

Modern Wood Garage Doors: Clopay’s handcrafted wood garage door line lets you mix materials, shapes and color to create a contemporary garage door that blends beautifully with other wood tones and materials on your exterior. Choose from Cedar, Redwood, Fir or Meranti.

How to Choose The Right Garage Door

With so many attractive modern style contemporary garage doors available, choosing the right one can be a challenge – but a fun one! Use our Door Imagination System to upload a photo of your home. Choose a collection and start designing your door to see how it looks. This is the time to experiment with styles you are curious about. You might be surprised how much you love a unique look.

In addition to picking a design, you’ll want to consider factors like cost, maintenance, and energy efficiency.

Steel offers the broadest range of price and insulation options. It’s also low-maintenance, as are faux wood composite and aluminum and glass doors. Wood is an inherently strong and durable material that will require regular finish upkeep to prevent deterioration. Garage door models with Intellicore insulation are going to be the most energy efficient and quiet, with R-values that range from 6.3 to 20.4.

Staying Within Your Budget

Purchasing a new garage door is an investment in the curb appeal and security of your home. With today’s technology and manufacturing methods, a good garage door can last more than 20 years.

The cost of a new garage door is based on door size, construction material, insulation type, design, windows and finish. The average starting price for an insulated single car modern garage door design in a standard color is about $1,200; an insulated steel double door costs closer to $2,000, uninstalled.

In comparison to many other home improvement projects, garage door replacement is one of the most affordable upgrades with the best return on investment at resale. According to the Cost vs. Value Report, you can expect over a 190% return.