How Versatile Glass Showers Balance Competing Wants and Needs
When renovating a bathroom, you need to weigh up different concerns and work out how to achieve them with your budget and design plans. That's why a highly adaptable glass shower is ideal. However, sometimes you have to do a balancing act and sacrifice some of one thing to get another. Here's a look at how a versatile glass shower can help you balance glazing and framing options.
Glazing Options: Privacy Versus Openness
Unfortunately, the same transparent shower screens that make a room feel open and spacious, also strip the enclosure of privacy. Thus, when selecting the glass for your shower, you need to work out what's most important.
In a compact room, you might opt for clear glass that allows the eye to reach room corners. Because all areas are visible, the room will appear larger. On the other hand, you may prize your privacy while showering. In that case, why not install frosted screens that block the view, allowing you to bathe in relative seclusion?
You can balance openness and privacy with various glazing options. For example, if you install shower screens with a wide horizontal band of frosting along the middle section, the top and bottom of the glass panels remain transparent. Thus, you'll retain a degree of openness as light flows through the upper and lower sections. Plus, you'll enjoy an element of privacy with the frosted bands.
Another way to achieve balance is by varying the frosting opacity rather than the area of the glass that it applies to. The frosting can form a total block, or it can slightly blur the view depending on your choices.
Framing Options: Minimalism Versus Cost
Versatile glass showers allow you to balance two other concerns, minimalism and cost. Frameless screens make the ultimate sleek statement, as they reduce visual clutter to create a luxurious and upscale look. With discreet brackets and supporting braces holding each glass shower screen in place, the enclosure becomes almost invisible, allowing beautiful background tile designs to come to the fore.
However, frameless showers are at the high-end in terms of cost. To create a svelte shower at a reduced price, you could go a middle route and install a semi-frameless design. These structures have framing around the perimeter of the entire enclosure, but not around each panel. The screens are attached to each other with minimal brackets along the vertical joins, though along the wall edges, the framing is more prominent. And you'll save money with this option because it's cheaper than a frameless model.
For more insight, contact glass shower screen contractors.