This present disclosure generally relates to a cover assembly for a garage door. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a cover assembly having seasonal, holiday, festive, sporting, or celebratory displays and is temporarily affixed to a movable garage door to provide an exterior decoration.
Decorating a residence has become analogous with the holiday season. It is commonplace to adorn the street facing façade of one's home with holiday lights, seasonal displays, and celebratory decorations. In most cases, homeowners seek efficient, safe, and cost-effective means to display their festive ornamentation.
In homes having a garage, one of the largest unobstructed flat surfaces is the garage door. Garage doors are typically constructed from sturdy materials and spend most of their operable life in the closed position. Therefore, the garage door's exterior facing surface is particularly well suited to support a large decorative display; that is, unless the display hinders the operation of the door. Typical residential homes are equipped with two operational door variants: Sectional and Tilt-up. While both variants provide as an adequate mounting surface, both do not easily support an affixed decorative cover during operation.
Sectional garage doors are especially challenging, as during the opening and closing cycles hinged door panels having lateral wheels must be allowed to ride unincumbered along a track. Additionally, as each hinged panel transitions through the opening and closing cycle gaps are formed between the individual panels at the hinges running the entirety of the spanwise exterior face of the garage door. As these gaps form, the vertical dimension (i.e., the distance from the bottommost edge to the topmost edge) of the garage door materially increases. Therefore, this recurring change in the garage door dimension limits the application of a dimensionally fixed decorative cover.
To address this problem, many examples in the prior art seek to equip a dimensionally fixed cover material to the exterior face of a garage door utilizing different forms of elastic clips, bands, hooks, or clamps. These additional components are integral to the cover material and must be utilized in conjunction to achieve the desired operational and aesthetic outcome
Examples, as seen in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,937,587A and 6,035,919A, both solutions describe the application of an “elongate flexible member”, or “resilient member” affixed to the lower edge of the garage door. This “member” is then attached via coupling means (e.g., snaps, holes, hooks, hardware) to the decorative door cover. In both examples the “member” is solely responsible for the vertical compensation of the decorative cover to accommodate the exterior surface of the garage door during the opening and closing cycles.
While both solutions provide the necessary elasticity of the affixed decorative door cover, there are several drawbacks. Firstly, the “member” or “members” must be affixed to the garage door and decorative cover in multiple locations along the bottommost and topmost edges of the garage door. This process is cumbersome, time consuming and possibly damaging to vital garage door components. Secondly, the “members” are easily lost, damaged or broken during installation and storage. Thirdly, the “members” do not uniformly maintain tension throughout the decorative cover. As a result, when the garage door is closed creases in the cover material, created during storage or shipment, are not adequately removed.
It should be noted that further examples found in U.S. Pat. No. 20030026940A1, U.S. Pat. No. US20140251554A1, and U.S. Pat. No. 20030026940A1 describe a decorative door cover which wraps around the edges of a hinged door, affixed to a door jamb. These solutions employ a combination of elastic materials and/or integrated elastic bands allowing the cover material to “wrap” and thus affix to the four corners of a hinged door (e.g., front door, side door, bedroom door).
While these solutions allow a decorative door cover to remain taut between a hinged door and door jamb, they are inadequate when applied on a larger more mechanically complex garage door. Firstly, hinged door panels of a sectional garage door utilize lateral wheels that must be allowed to ride unincumbered along a track. Wrapping the cover material around each corner would impede the transition between the open and closed states of the door. Secondly, garage doors are frequently constructed of rough-cut materials. The four corners of the door typically exhibit sharp edges, extrusions, and fasteners. A combination of tensile stress and the repeated opening and closing of the garage door would result in tearing/cutting of the decorative cover in these “wrapping” locations
It is therefore an object of the disclosure to provide a cover assembly and a cover which when attached to the surface of a garage door permits the garage door to open and close without the cover becoming detached or impeding the operation of the garage door.
It is another object of the disclosure to provide a cover assembly and a cover which is held taut and has a uniform crease free appearance on the exterior surface of the garage door.
It is a further object of the disclosure to provide a cover assembly and a cover which may be easily attached and detached from the garage door.
It is also an object of the disclosure to provide a cover assembly and a cover which, upon removal, will not mar the garage door surface to which it is attached.
It is still a further object of the disclosure to provide a cover assembly and a cover for a garage door which is machine washable and weather resistant.
In accordance with these objects, the disclosure a cover for a garage door is disclosed. The cover includes a first portion adapted to cover a street facing surface of the garage door, and a pair of second portions adapted to be arranged covering a garage facing surface of the garage door. The front portion is arranged between the pair of rear portions. The cover also includes at least four collars adapted to be arranged at corners of the garage door and arranged at interfaces of the front portion with the pair of rear portions. Each collar defines a cutout extending inwardly from an edge of the cover and adapted to facilitate an extension of an associated corner of the garage door outside the cover, a first coupling portion extending along the second portion from the cutout to a lateral edge of the cover, and a second coupling portion extending from the cutout in a direction opposite to the first coupling portion and along a portion of a length of the first portion. The first coupling portion is adapted to engage with the second coupling portion to removably engage the cover on the garage door.
In an embodiment, each collar includes a reinforced hem.
In an embodiment, the first portion of the cover includes at least one decorative illustration.
In an embodiment, the cover is made of an elastic fabric.
In an embodiment, the cover further includes a first longitudinal edge and a second longitudinal edge arranged opposite to the first longitudinal edge and the collars are defined along the first longitudinal edge and the second longitudinal edge.
According to another aspect of the disclosure, a cover assembly for a garage door is provided. The cover assembly includes a cover having a first portion adapted to cover a street facing surface of the garage door and a pair of second portions adapted to be arranged covering a garage facing surface of the garage door. The front portion is arranged between the pair of rear portions. The cover further includes at least four collars adapted to be arranged at corners of the garage door and arranged at interfaces of the front portion with the pair of rear portions. Each collar defines a cutout extending inwardly from an edge of the cover and adapted to facilitate an extension of an associated corner of the garage door outside of the cover. The collar also includes a first coupling portion extending along the second portion from the cutout to a lateral edge of the cover and a second coupling portion extending from the cutout in a direction opposite to the first coupling portion and along a portion of a length of the first portion. The first coupling portion is engaged with the second coupling portion to removably engage the cover on the garage door.
In an embodiment, the cover assembly includes a plurality of couplers to engage the first coupling portion of each collar with a corresponding second coupling portion.
In an embodiment, the coupler is a zipper.
In an embodiment, each collar includes a reinforced hem.
In an embodiment, the first portion of the cover includes at least one decorative illustration.
In an embodiment, the cover is made of an elastic fabric.
In an embodiment, the cover includes a first longitudinal edge and a second longitudinal edge arranged opposite to the first longitudinal edge and the collars are defined along the first longitudinal edge and the second longitudinal edge.
According to yet another aspect of the disclosure, a cover assembly for a garage door is disclosed. The cover assembly includes a cover made of an elastic fabric. The cover includes a first portion adapted to cover a street facing surface of the garage door and a pair of second portions adapted to be arranged covering a garage facing surface of the garage door. The front portion is arranged between the pair of rear portions. The cover also includes at least four collars adapted to be arranged at corners of the garage door and arranged at interfaces of the front portion with the pair of rear portions. Each collar defines a cutout extending inwardly from an edge of the cover and adapted to facilitate an extension of an associated corner of the garage door outside of the cover. The collar also includes a first coupling portion extending along the second portion from the cutout to a lateral edge of the cover, and a second coupling portion extending from the cutout in a direction opposite to the first coupling portion and along a portion of a length of the first portion. The cover assembly also includes a plurality of couplers to engage the first coupling portion of each collar with a corresponding second coupling portion to removably engage the cover on the garage door.
In an embodiment, the coupler is a zipper.
In an embodiment, each collar includes a reinforced hem.
In an embodiment, the first portion of the cover includes at least one decorative illustration.
In an embodiment, the cover includes a first longitudinal edge and a second longitudinal edge arranged opposite to the first longitudinal edge and the collars are defined along the first longitudinal edge and the second longitudinal edge.
Additional objects and advantages of the disclosure will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reference to the detailed description taken in conjunction with the provided figures.
Additional aspects and advantages will be apparent from the following detailed description of example embodiments, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Example embodiments are described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. Unless otherwise expressly stated in the drawings, the sizes, positions, etc., of components, features, elements, etc., as well as any distances therebetween, are not necessarily to scale, and may be disproportionate and/or exaggerated for clarity.
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing example embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting. As used herein, the singular forms “a,” “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It should be recognized that the terms “comprise,” “comprises,” and/or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof. Unless otherwise specified, a range of values, when recited, includes both the upper and lower limits of the range, as well as any sub-ranges therebetween. Unless indicated otherwise, terms such as “first,” “second,” etc., are only used to distinguish one element from another. For example, one element could be termed a “first element” and similarly, another element could be termed a “second element,” or vice versa. The section headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not to be construed as limiting the subject matter described.
Unless indicated otherwise, the terms “about,” “thereabout,” “substantially,” etc., mean that amounts, sizes, formulations, parameters, and other quantities and characteristics are not and need not be exact, but may be approximate and/or larger or smaller, as desired, reflecting tolerances, conversion factors, rounding off, measurement error and the like, and other factors known to those of skill in the art.
Spatially relative terms, such as “right,” left,” “below,” “beneath,” “lower,” “above,” and “upper,” and the like, may be used herein for ease of description to describe one element's or feature's relationship to another element or feature, as illustrated in the drawings. It should be recognized that the spatially relative terms are intended to encompass different orientations in addition to the orientation depicted in the figures. For example, if an object in the figures is turned over, elements described as “below” or “beneath” other elements or features would then be oriented “above” the other elements or features. Thus, the term “below” can, for example, encompass both an orientation of above and below. An object may be otherwise oriented (e.g., rotated 90 degrees or at other orientations) and the spatially relative descriptors used herein may be interpreted accordingly.
Unless clearly indicated otherwise, all connections and all operative connections may be direct or indirect. Similarly, unless clearly indicated otherwise, all connections and all operative connections may be rigid or non-rigid.
Like numbers refer to like elements throughout. Thus, the same or similar numbers may be described with reference to other drawings even if they are neither mentioned nor described in the corresponding drawing. Also, even elements that are not denoted by reference numbers may be described with reference to other drawings.
Many different forms and embodiments are possible without deviating from the spirit and teachings of this disclosure and so this disclosure should not be construed as limited to the example embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these example embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will convey the scope of the disclosure to those skilled in the art.
Reference in this specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present disclosure. The appearance of the phrase “in one embodiment” in various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment, nor are separate or alternative embodiments mutually exclusive of other embodiments.
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Further, the cover assembly 10 includes a plurality of couplers 54, for example, zippers, attached to the coupling portions 52a, 55b of the collars to facilitate the engagement of the coupling portions 52a, 52b with each other. Although, the zipper is contemplated as the coupler 54 for attaching the first coupling portion 52a to the second coupling portion 52b of each collar 40, it may be appreciated that the coupler 54 may be any other suitable attachment mechanism, such as, but not limited to, buttons, laces, snaps, loop and hoop fasteners, or any suitable mechanism known in the art. As shown in
For mounting/installing the cover assembly 10 on the garage door 12, the cover 14 is positioned on the street-facing side of the garage door 12 such that a surface of the first portion 23 of the cover 14 having the illustration 16 is arranged facing the street. During the installation process, as reflected in
Subsequently, the first coupling portion 52a of each collar 40 is aligned with the associated second coupling portion 52b and the coupler 54 is engaged to attach the first coupling portion 52a with the associated second coupling portion 52b. In this manner, when properly installed, each collar 40 is positioned such that adequate clearance for garage door components 28, 30, 34 and 36 is maintained.
There have been described and illustrated herein an exemplary embodiment of an elastic garage door decorative cover. While the ideal embodiment of the invention has been described, it is not intended that the invention be limited thereto, as it is intended that the invention be as broad in scope as the art will allow and that the specification be read likewise. It will therefore be appreciated by those skilled in the art that yet other modifications could be made to the provided invention without deviating from its spirit and scope.
This application is a non-provisional application claiming the benefit of priority to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 63/131,217, titled “Flexible Garage Door Decorative Cover”, filed on Dec. 28, 2020, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Number | Date | Country | |
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20230158826 A1 | May 2023 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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63131217 | Dec 2020 | US |