15 Stylish Pergola Over The Garage Door to Create a Different Look

You may have matched your garage doors with your front door to create cohesion.

But, if you want a unique and functional look at the same time, have you installed a pergola over your garage door?

A pergola is usually found in the garden or patio, but that doesn’t mean that you can install it over the garage door.

A standard pergola has a structure with rafters without a real roof that mostly covers a seating space or is used as a space for ivy to grow on.

However, a garage pergola is a bit different. Instead of standing alone, this structure is attached to the garage’s exterior, the wall around the garage.

Some people call this an overhang or a canopy instead of a pergola, but they’re practically the same thing.

You may have wondered why people even bother to build a pergola over garage doors.

Actually, apart from being aesthetic, there are some benefits to why you should build a pergola over the garage door.

It can be good for weather protection. It may not offer a lot, but at least a pergola is enough to give a little shade. It will be even better to add vines or other creeping plants to your pergola to deliver an extra shade.

Some types of a pergola are completed with screens on both sides. Usually, a wide pergola covers the top of the garage door and half of the driveway. The screens on both sides are useful to offer some privacy.

Have you been convinced to install a pergola over the garage door yet? Below are some ideas you can spark your inspiration:

1. Extra Wide Pergola Over a Horizontal Panel Garage Door

Nothing beats wood if you want to add a natural look to your house, despite the main style you’ve chosen before. Wood doesn’t exclusively belong to the traditional or rustic design.

This house’s exterior has a contemporary style but is dominated by a wood element.

This is a sliding garage door that can only accommodate one car, with horizontal panel wood that makes it look wider than it actually is.

Above, the designer installed an extra wide pergola over it to create an aesthetic look as well as cohesion because it appears that the pergola is also made of a similar type of wood to the garage door.

Extra wide pergola like this is useful if you want to provide a more sufficient shade in your garage’s entrance.

It also works as a protector that keeps the garage private because it takes two detached wood walls that work as a screen to support the wide pergola.

Instead of contrasting it, the designer decided it would be better to create a uniform look in this garage area.

From the garage door, the pergola, to the decking on the right side and the wall screen on the left side, they’re all made of wood, finished and treated in the same way.

2. Wooden Pergola is Attached to a Brick Wall Over Garage Doors

Want something more classic? You can consider recreating this look.

If you want to incorporate a traditional style, the key elements that you shouldn’t forget are bricks and woods.

In this three-car garage, the exterior wall is entirely made of exposed bricks with white grout that makes it look extra classic.

To complete it, the designer installed a simple and typical wooden pergola over the raised panel garage door painted in white.

Since this is a three-car garage, it has three separate doors. In order to support the pergola, it takes four wooden posts were placed on each side of the garage door.

Basically, this combination is quite simple, with no bold color to accentuate the whole look. Yet, the charm is in the simplicity.

Who needs extravagant design and bold colors if you’re able to work with different textures and materials?

3. Cedar Pergola Over the Garage Doors that Contrast Them

Quite different from the previous pictures, this pergola is not meant to blend with the whole design of the garage exterior.

Right from the start, it’s obvious that the designer meant it to be a focal point, a statement to accentuate the whole garage exterior design.

We can see that this property has black siding and rood. In order to achieve cohesion, the designer also opted for black garage doors completed with glass panels as a window in each door.

Even the hardware of the garage doors is also finished in black. This all-black house exterior would have only looked like another black house if it had not been completed with the cedar pergola.

The pergola itself is typical and minimalist, the one that you can absolutely make on your own over the weekend. Instead of posts or pillars, the designer used brackets to support this pergola, a simple construction to work with.

The stunning part is how the cedar pergola contrasts the black garage door. In fact, it doesn’t only contrast the garage door but also the whole exterior of the house.

The designer also installed two black sconces over the pergola to complete the whole look, which is useful to highlight in the evening.

4. Barn Garage Doors with a Pergola Over Them

Instead of making it contrast, the designer of this project thought it would be better to create a complementing look with a soft and neutral color to achieve a farmhouse style.

The exterior of this house is painted in Sherwin Williams – Natural Choice, a good paint option if you want to work with a beige color. Barn garage doors with a pergola over them.

There’s a wooden pergola that’s made of a dark tone of wood to subtly contrast the beige wall placed over the garage door. The garage doors are the barn type made of wood in a vertical position, complete with a Z brace.

Barn doors like this are the options you should choose if you want to achieve a rustic, country, or farmhouse design.

The pergola itself has a modern vibe. It looks quite polished with a wider gap of rafters. Its simple look also enhances the modern style it has. There are no posts or pillars. Instead, there are only brackets that support them.

Instead of over it, the designer installed three hanging pendants in it to illuminate the garage’s entrance at night. The warm yellow glow from the pendants dramatically lights the garage door and the pergola.

5. Simple Pergola Over Mint Green Garage Doors

If you think that garage doors can only be good if they’re painted in neutral colors, think again. Similar to your front door, garage doors can be fun to experiment with. You can play with the colors or create an accent through it.

In this project, the designer preferred to paint the garage door mint green. This is a single sliding door that looks imposing. With such a pop of color, this door serves as an accent.

On the other hand, the exterior wall is made of bricks, exposed brick with a rough texture to promote a craftsman style that the homeowners opted for.

To enhance the craftsman’s look, the designer also installed a wooden pergola over the garage door. It’s obvious that this pergola is very simple. The rafters only consist of a simple stick of wood.

However, from this angle, we can see that this pergola runs through the side of the house. And on the other side of the garage door, this pergola is supported by brick columns with wooden pillars.

This is another type of pergola that you can include in your DIY project.

If you want to paint your garage door in an accent color like this, it’s important to keep the pergola simple and minimalist like this to make sure that it won’t steal the spotlight from the door.

6. Pergola with Wisteria Over The Three-car Garage Door

We all know that a pergola can’t really offer a cover to protect the area. However, you should be creative with it.

Why don’t you add a creeping plant in your pergola, a thick plant to provide extra protection?

There’s a creeping plant in this pergola that works both aesthetically and functionally. It adds a natural look to the garage, but at the same time, it provides shades too. It looks like wisteria. This kind of plant has pretty fragrant white or pendulous purple flowers in the summer.

If you want to incorporate wisteria in your pergola like this, keep in mind that this is an aggressive grower. It can even be invasive. That’s why you need to maintain it regularly.

The pergola itself has an arched design, which is more whimsical and fun than the typical pergolas.

We can see here that in order to create an arched pergola, you don’t have to have arched garage doors, to begin with.

The garage doors are simple in this project, a classic raised panel door in a square shape. Yet, in order to create a visual balance, the designer decided to install an arched pergola in each of the doors.

7. Craftsman Style Garage with a Pergola Over the Door

It’s quite clear that this garage has a lovely craftsman style.

At this point, it’s safe to say that in order to achieve a craftsman look with a pergola, you need to make sure the pergola has a simple rafter.

This one’s got a very short rafter, which looks less imposing than the previous pergolas, especially the extra wide one.

A short pergola like this is obviously meant to be aesthetic rather than functional. It has a bit of overhang on both sides and is completed with three posts to support it.

The posts stand on each side of the garage door, prettily bracketing it.

For some, the exterior of this garage may be a bit dark and boring. The wall is made of brick finished in a dark tone, obviously meant to complement the dark finished garage door.

The pergola is made of medium-tone wood, which adds a little light to the whole exterior.

As a finishing touch, the designer installed a wall sconce in each post. These wall sconces are identical and look a lot like a modern lantern.

Installing lights in the post of your pergola is an excellent idea to illuminate the whole look in a simple and minimalist way.

8. Arched Pergola to Follow the Lines of the Garage Doors

Similar to one of the previous pictures, the pergola in this project also has an arched design. However, this one is bare without any growing vine.

The bare-arched pergola looks pretty. It beautifully accentuates the garage doors, which also have an arched design. Both the garage doors and the pergola complement each other, creating cohesion.

The pergola is made of cedar, with 4”x4”x10’ tied together. It is painted in a soft gray color, which looks quite similar to Sherwin Williams – Network Gray, which is a bit darker than the siding. The garage door itself is painted white.

White and gray work together to create a soft traditional look.

Instead of lights, the designer added a pot on each side of the garage door. The pot is filled with a vine that seems to be confederate jasmine.

With the right attention, confederate jasmine can thrive in this application. However, covering this pretty pergola with vines would be a waste.

So, if you want to recreate this look, make sure the vines won’t reach the pergola. Keep trimming it so it will only grow the wall on each side of the garage door.

9. A Pergola was Completed with Three Columns Over the Garage Door

This is an example of a transitional garage exterior.

The doors have an arched design, complete with glass panels at the top part that works as a window. Surely that is the design that pulls off a modern vibe.

Moreover, the color palette is also neutral, a combination of gray and white to create a simple and minimalist look, one of the key elements in a modern design.

On the other hand, the pergola has a traditional design. You can see it from the typical construction and the common design.

Moreover, this pergola is supported by three imposing columns or pillars. Pillars like this are widely used in a traditional look.

The pillars are meant to subtly contrast the garage door and the pergola, which are both finished in white paint. The pillars are painted in beige, clearly to blend seamlessly with the paver in front of the garage door.

The combination of a modern garage door and traditional pergola creates an undeniably perfect transitional design.

If you want to copy this look, make sure you finish them in a subtle contrast that represents their own style.

10. Extended Pergola Over the Garage Door that Covers the Planter Box Too

We have seen a garage door and a pergola that contrasts each other in the previous pictures.

In this project, you’ll know that it’s also an excellent idea to finish the pergola and the garage door in the same way, so they can blend with each other.

The designer painted the garage door and the pergola in a deep dark green, a tone that will never fail to give you a fresh and natural look.

Like the previous picture, this garage door also has an arched design, completed with glass panels at the top that serves as a window, a modern garage door.

Yet, the striking part of this exterior is the pergola. From this angle, it’s quite hard to see, but actually, this is a three-car garage. However, the pergola covers two garage doors only.

Creating an L-shaped, the pergola is extended on the left side. The extension part is meant to cover the planter box built on one side of the garage. This planter box works as a screen to separate this area from the next property.

The designer wanted to create a unique and whimsical look. So, they decided to cover the planter box but left the third garage door bare and open without any pergola over it.

11. Olive Green Painted Pergola Over Beige-colored Garage Doors

This timeless garage is completed with a stone wall, arched doors, and a pergola.

Even though this garage door has an arched design, the pergola still has a straight line. It doesn’t follow the arch shape of the doors, which is good because the different lines like this will create a visual balance if they’re juxtaposed.

Instead of the pergola, the element that also has an arch design following the lines of the doors is the edging. Each garage door has a brick edging that frames the doors, separating them from the stone wall.

The garage doors are painted in beige color to blend with the exterior wall. On the other hand, the pergola is painted in olive green, a kind of tone that will enrich the whole exterior.

The pergola is installed in a quite high spot, way up above the garage doors. It’s because the designer mounted a modern lantern at the top of each door to highlight it.

The pergola itself is the common type, supported with brackets that also frame each door.

12. White Pergola Over Carriage Style Garage Doors

At first glance, it’s concluded that the most attractive part of this garage is the door.

These are aluminum carriage-style doors by Northwest Door, the Infinity Classics. They have custom arched windows to match the door openings.

The clear glass windows are finished in standard white finish, being part of the large arts and crafts garage.

Actually, there are two garage doors, the wider and the smaller one. It’s obvious that the wider is meant to be the main door and only the main door that has a pergola over it. There is a white pergola that beautifies the garage exterior.

Nevertheless, this pergola is quite different from the typical pergola over the garages. Instead of being attached to the wall, this pergola is installed at the soffit of the gable roof. It’s because this garage is quite low.

The top of the doors nearly reaches the wall top, which is made of brick. It’s clear that there’s no place left to install a pergola.

That’s why the pergola is installed in the roof part. The soffit has gray siding, while the pergola is finished in white. It matches the round window and the roof’s trim nicely, though.

The white pergola also blends seamlessly with the white garage doors, creating cohesion even though they are separated by the brick wall.

13. Large Pergola with a Screen Over Garage Doors

Compared to the previous pergolas, this one is quite large. It doesn’t only consist of rafters but also the screen that extends from the top to both sides of the pergola.

The screen in the pergola partially encloses the garage’s opening, giving extra privacy and an extra shade to the area.

Since this is a large pergola, it’s reasonable to structure it with posts instead of brackets only. There are five wooden posts to support it.

Since this pergola has a vertical slatted screen on both sides, the posts should be placed a few meters away from the garage doors, not attached to the wall.

The garage itself is spacious. This is a four-car garage with a separated arched door. The doors are finished in a soft green with a darker green trim at the top, creating a soft and natural look that appears in contrast to the pergola.

On the other hand, the pergola remains bare without any painting and finish. Yes, it delivers a natural charm of the wood, but it looks odd against the green garage doors.

It’s as if the pergola s an extension part, an additional element that was added later after everything had been completed.

14. Minimalist Pergola Over a Wood Panel Modern Garage Door

We can easily say that this is a modern-style garage. You can see it clearly from the door. A door like this in your garage will surely increase your curb appeal.

If you’re wondering, this is Dynamic Garage Door. Dynamic Garage Door is one of the best manufacturers you should opt for if you want to have a world-class garage door. They created a custom-made product that can turn your imagination into reality.

Even though it is made of wood, the style of the door is undeniably modern, with a tight horizontal slat and a stack of glass panels on one side of the door instead of at the top.

In order to enhance the modern look, the homeowners also installed a pergola over the garage door.

Unlike the typical pergolas you’ve seen before, this one is totally different. It looks very simple and minimalist, with no brackets or pillars to support it. What supports the rafters is only a long line of timber.

This pergola’s parts are finished in white to create a minimalist look, an important element in a modern style.

15. Traditional Arbor Pergola Over Two Garage Doors

This is not just a pergola. This is an arbor pergola, a more complicated design than a typical pergola. It’s because an arbor is meant to be a spot where a creeping plant should grow.

Actually, the style of this garage is traditional. It has a barn-style door painted in white with black hardware to create a contrast. This is a two-car garage with two detached doors. However, both doors are protected by the arbor pergola.

Like the garage doors, the arbor pergola is also painted white. Surely they are meant to contrast the brown siding that this property has. This arbor pergola is supported by similarly white posts on each side of the door.

Right below the posts, on the ground, the homeowners planted a vine that is meant to grow on the posts and right to the arbor pergola over the garage door.

It’s clear that this pergola is meant to be covered by a creeping vine, so the designer made it typical without any additional ornaments or whimsical arched design.

In the middle post, there is no creeping vine planted there. Instead, the homeowner placed a potted plant to complement the vine on both sides.

If you want to copy this look, make sure you keep the garage door and the pergola simple and minimalist. It will be better if you paint them in a neutral shade like this.

Let the growing vine take the most spotlight because a pergola over a garage door with a creeping plant to cover it will dramatically enhance the visual interest of your exterior, instantly adding a lush green.

Different Types of Pergola Over Garage Door

There are many types of pergola that you can incorporate into your outdoor space. But what about the pergola over the garage door?

Well, basically the same, but the pergola over the garage door tends to be simpler than the pergola over a patio or a seating space.

Here are some popular types of pergola you can install over your garage door:

1. Traditional pergola: A classically styled pergola over a garage door delivers the beauty to your exterior. The design includes columns or pillars and other structural details. The craftsman is achieved with four pillars and beams over the roof completed with some elegant features, like ornamented rafters. A traditional pergola delivers a timeless aesthetic look, never running out of style. When it comes to color, a traditional pergola over a garage door is typically in a neutral color, like brownish or woodgrain. Usually, the pergola matches the garage door.
2. Modern pergola: This type of pergola has become a new favorite for new generations. A white vinyl pergola is often used in a modern setting. White is known as a pure and natural color that never goes out of style. The good thing is that it gets along perfectly well with both light and dark exterior colors. White is often associated with a modern vibe because it is versatile enough to complement brick, stone, stucco, and neutral color home siding. A modern pergola also has clean lines.
3. Craftsman pergola: More often than not, the craftsman pergola over the garage door is made of natural wood without too many treatments. The natural wood craftsman-styled pergola usually has a subtle grain or even rich stain colors. This type of pergola exudes a certain richness and style that most people like. Plus, craftsman pergola usually has short rafters. The rafters lack details and architectural features. It would be better to pair a craftsman-style pergola with a bold-colored garage door. The natural wood pergola will create a contrasting look to the exterior.

A quick tip:

A pergola can be a great visual enhancer for your garage. It often displays a focal point. To make sure you build the right one, you should also consider the material despite the styles.

The three popular materials for pergola over a garage door are wood, metal, and vinyl.

Wood is perfect if you want rustic, traditional, or other straightforward styles. Opt for metal or vinyl for lower maintenance and a more contemporary look.