I want the look of wood carriage doors but without the maintenance or cost of wood doors. Some garage door sites say you can stain/paint to look like wood. Am I crazy to consider doing this on a high end spec house (I'm a contractor). How would I go about doing this? Thanks in advance for any advice!

What type of garage door?

Is it a raised panel door?

Is there wood grain already embossed in the door?

If that is your goal, I would look at fiberglass garage doors instead of steel ones.

Just one example, would be Wayne Dalton's 9800 series garage doors.