Color preference is your choice.

To prep the door, wash it with Dirtex and rinse with garden hose. Let dry or towel dry it.

Apply two coats of BM IronClad Wood & Metal Enamel in Low Lustre finish. Never use flat outdoors. Flat attracts dirt and is not scrubbable.

Michael

I hardly do much exterior work these days but in my 25 years of painting I didn't know that you should never use a flat finish outdoors, but then again I have never scrubbed the exterior of a house either.

As far as a factory painted metal garage door goes I would treat it the same way as a factory painted aluminum gutter. Sure wash it off with some Dirtex if ya want. I just use TSP & maybe some oxygenated bleach if there is any mold or mildew. Most paint manufactures upper end acrylics will adhere to your door no problem. This will probably allow you to use the same trim paint thats on the rest of your house which I assume has a sheen cause normally trim is not painted in flat.

Just to keep the flow of your house's color scheme going right I would just put a lil test spot of paint on the door. Wait 2 days at the most & try to scratch it off with your fingernail. If its holding tight you will prolly be safe with the product you used on the rest of your house.

Thanks for the answers. The houses down here are stucco and they usually paint them with flat. I just looked at my paint in the areas where it is not sun bleached and it is flat and so is the accent banding and trim. The fascia and soffitt are aluminum and vinyl. I think I'll go with a satin finish on the door, the banding and trim. But, stay with the flat on the main body of the house.

The garage door and the body of the house are different substrates and require different paints. Stucco should be painted with elastomeric paints, not regular paints.

for me info, read the link.

Michael

Here is a link that might be useful: Painting Stucco

In our new build we put in roll up metal garage doors. We ordered then green to match the green trim on the barn. When they got in, wow how ugly, they don't even match, I can't stand to look at them. They've been up for a year and I cringe everytime I drive down the driveway. Do you paint them the same as sectional garage doors? Also, should I try to match the green at the paint store or just go with white? I was thinking if I painted them the right shade of green that even if it chipped it wouldn't look quite so bad if some sort of green showed thru than if I painted it white and it chipped with that ugly green showing through.
Also I was wondering how well a paint job on these doors would hold up. These are really big doors and I would hate to have to paint them every year but man they are ugly.

side question: I would love to see the roll up doors, smoothtalker...do you have a pic? I'm considering getting a ribbed door for our house, as it's more modern in line, but have hesitated because it's unusual for the area...

flyleft, I will try to get a picture. My husband is the computer savvy person not me. These doors are on the barn/garage next to the house. I'm not sure what a ribbed door is. Is it the same as a roll up?

They're similar--imagine panels made of several of the rollup sections. Thanks in advance if your DH can get a picture up. I know it took us a long time to learn how :)

Flyleft, sorry I never got around to posting a picture of my garage doors. Hurricane Ike took care of those ugly doors. They were 14 x 12 and the wind basically blew them out of their track and ripped the metal. I hate to say I'm glad but the only real damage we got was those two doors that I hated. Our other smaller doors did fine. If I can find a picture I will still try to put it up. (I guess I must get picture friendly.)