Rarely will you find a better side-by-side garage-door comparison than the one contained on this simple two-stall garage.

The left-hand door befits a typical suburban home, and the right-hand door a more rural outbuilding. Hard to know how these two doors came to be side by side, but I suspect that both openings once sported doors like those in the right-hand opening, but that the door in the left-hand opening was ultimately replaced with an updated overhead door for ease of use. 

It will come as no surprise to fellow House Enthusiasts, that in the case of informal, more rural, or more traditional outbuildings serving as garages, I'm partial to the door style -- which I would describe as carriage-style doors -- in the right-hand opening. Such doors often swing open, or in this case, slide open. Both types of operation are seen as somewhat laborious today, so many current manufacturers, such as Designer Doors, create carriage-style doors that are built in sections (like the more suburban-style door in the left-hand opening), so they, too, can open overhead for convenience.

I'd love to see a new overhead door in the left-hand opening designed to match the carriage-style doors in the right-hand opening. It would be win-win in terms of the look and function. Now if only one would materialize.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast