Month: September 2020

How to Upgrade your Interiors without Breaking the Bank

Interior Design Trends

The change of season always offers a wonderful opportunity to reassess your life on a grand scale, from relationships to the new school year, your current job to your wardrobe. And perhaps the most important of areas to consider these days, are your interiors. It’s healthy and informative to have this reassessment experience a few times each year in order to grow, evolve, and adapt to the changing times and changing seasons. Life is all about flexibility and personal growth, and with the changing of each season, crucial life transitions and adaptations take form whether we realize it or not. This fall how can you ask yourself those questions about your life, and what actions can you take to meet your ever-changing needs and desires?

Physical and Mental Well Being

Without question, one of the most important personal areas to address is your current mental and physical health. For without these two entities in alignment and in good health, everything else in our lives can easily crumble.
Ask yourself, are you getting enough outside time? Is exercise a part of your weekly and daily routine? Are you journaling or otherwise talking to important people in your life about how you feel? Is yoga, martial arts, or dance a practice that you utilize to achieve inner peace? There are so many tools and methods available in our modern-day to get ourselves back on track and closer to finding inner solitude. Especially so during these trying times during a worldwide pandemic, it is so important to make sure that you are receiving the nourishment and help that you need to keep going.
One way to introduce more healthy physical exercise/movement into your daily routine could be to create a home gym. During COVID when most gyms are closed or otherwise have limited capacity, you can take it upon yourself to bring fitness to you! No gym commute, no sweaty ride home, no shared showers. A home gym allows for increased focus, comfort, and cleanliness. If you don’t have a spare bedroom, do not worry. You can easily construct a small home gym using easy-to-install sliding glass wall partitions or glass room dividers to create that physical space and sanctuary you want for your workout room. This could also double as a yoga studio or a meditation room within your home in which you can escape to without the disruption of home life. By installing floor-to-ceiling glass wall partitions, you’ll have the flexibility to open and close off entire rooms within seconds! These special solutions are a breeze to install and take down, offering you the flexibility necessary during these uncertain times. You can swiftly save the potential cost and disruption of real construction while achieving the same thing with sliding room dividers.

Question Your Surroundings

The next area of your life worth considering is your surrounding indoor environment. Is your home a place that you love coming back to at the end of a long day? Do you find sanctuary and solace when entering your home? Or does your home life make you feel sad or tired? Is your space fresh, modern, and contemporary, or is it sorely outdated? Is there enough light throughout your home? Depending on how you answered these questions, you may be in need of some interior decorating/remodeling this fall. These preliminary questions are all great indicators of direction and which areas to tackle first when considering your interiors. After all, we all want to exist in beautiful, comfortable spaces that fill us up rather than detracts from our well-being.
If you start an interior remodeling project this season, however large or small, here are some classic problem areas:

Not enough natural light
Crowded spaces
General clutter
Disorganization
Lack of interior design cohesion
Not enough natural elements/greenery
Impersonal art curation

Now ask yourself how you could remedy these larger issues. Perhaps installing translucent glass wall partitions, or sliding glass barn doors within your communal rooms would help to bring in more natural light, as well as help to open the space up for entertaining or for family nights in. As we evolve to maintain increased fluidity in our lifestyles and schedules, our interiors should mimic this flexibility. Wall partitions that move can help with this.
Additionally, consider integrating more florals and house plants indoors to freshen up the air, and create a beautiful sanctuary that pays homage to the outdoors (even in the most urban environment). Plants have a profound effect on our mental and physical wellbeing and are proven to increase mental focus and serotonin in the body. A simple, affordable solution is available at any home and garden store!
Give yourself the gift of calm this fall with awesome space optimizing solutions offered at the sliding door Company. Hop online and check out our viewing catalog of sliding glass room dividers, beautiful sliding glass barn doors, and more! Schedule a free initial consultation with one of our knowledgeable experts to get started on your exciting project today! With home delivery and online ordering, it’s never been easier to create a space out of nothing. Don’t wait to enjoy your interiors this fall, call today!

TSDC 1026 – A

Timeless Inspiration to Elevate Your Fall Interiors

Interior Design Trends

Ahhh Fall. Leaves dropping, cooler days, cozy sweaters, and pumpkin spiced lattes. We love Fall. There’s something about the start of September that gives us that warm feeling in our stomach and makes us giddy for the change of season. If you’re like most of us, you’ll be updating your interiors to reflect your internal mood. Cozying up your space to reflect the outdoors is a natural human inclination that we all feed into. Adding little decorations, changing our relative scenery, even swapping candles out to match the season feels like second nature. And while these little details itch that seasonal scratch, sometimes they don’t produce the full-bodied emotion we’re chasing. So, if you’re seeking out some awe-inspiring design inspiration this season, we’ve got you covered!
Mix It Up!
We all know and love those natural fall colors; browns, reds, creams, burn orange. We’re used to implementing these rich accent colors throughout the home during the autumn months, but what if we switched it up this year? Design experts are predicting an elevated fall color pallet consisting of royal blues, deep indigos, and a Moroccan take on fall classics like desert sand and cayenne red. By mixing it up, we can freshen up the classics we all love so much. Adding an earthy rawness like textured walls and uneven paint marks will contemporize your space while fulfilling your fall needs. Still bring in those warm fall tones, but consider pairing them with rich, evocative color pops that will excite and renew your interiors like never before.

Bring The Outside In
Pay homage to the natural surrounding motifs of fall. With so many beautiful organic colors and elements coming out of the autumnal months, there’s no shortage of inspiration. Play around with dried leaves and flowers, pull inspiration from fascinating sticks and stones. Fallen branches and twigs can be put into ceramic or glass vases to make a naturally bold statement piece. Have fun gathering an assortment of leaves, fallen pinecones, and acorns to dress up your table with the essence of autumn (if location allows). Hang dried flowers and leaves from the windowsill to create interesting shadow play when natural light shines through during the day.
An Ode to Light
One of the best parts of fall is the beautiful warm light that streams in and creates a cozy interior environment. Spread more natural light by integrating glass doors and glass wall partitions throughout otherwise dark areas of the house. Replace light-blocking bathroom doors with opaque sliding glass bathroom doors that offer privacy with enhanced light. After all, we’re not ready for the darkness of winter just yet!
Minimalism
We all know that the winter months are anything short of minimalistic. With the excess of Christmas, Hanukkah, and other holidays, the winter months can be a time of great abundance and indulgence. Whether through food, material goods, new toys, or gifts, the winter months seem to elicit a natural “stockpile” mentality in all of us. To prepare for the excess, this fall set aside a few days to engage in a full-blown overhaul of things you can clear and discard from your life, and your interiors. Channel your inner minimalist and tackle a big closet cleanout, a kitchen pantry throw-away, and a bedroom deep-clean. Make piles for donation-centers and bring your unloved books and toys to your local grade schools for the kids to enjoy. Downsizing will bring a welcomed sense of clarity and calm into your home and prepare you for the onslaught on new items and holiday chaos you’ll be exposed to this winter.

Personalize Your Curation
One of the hottest design trends right now is the return to highly personal curation. Being so accustomed to the impersonal design approach of the modern-day, people are often intimidated to bring out the items and keepsakes that hold deep emotional value. Repurpose and display family heirlooms, vintage items passed down through the generations, reupholster old furniture, and reintroduce little knick-knacks you long stowed away that hold significant value and memories to you. Unique, one-of-a-kind pieces have added a lost quality to modern interior design which is normally so rooted in boring perfection. This new style values the imperfect, the unique, and allows for fun personalization to occur!
Using these design tips and trends for fall, you’ll have no shortage of inspiration heading into these cooler months. For even more inspiration and ideas on spatial solutions, don’t hesitate to check out the best wall partitions, sliding glass barn doors, sliding closet doors, and sliding room dividers offered at The Sliding Door Company. Visit Us Online to browse our online viewing catalog and Enjoy A Free Consultation from one of our team members to actualize your vision today!

TSDC 1021 – A

Interior Space Mastery How Colors Inform Emotions Within Our Home

Interior Design Trends

We’ve all experienced that moment walking into a home and becoming instantly transfixed, transported to another time and place and feeling. The colors on the walls, the textiles, the shapes of furniture inform our emotions, and cause us to feel a specific kind of way. That savory experience might have motivated some of us to seek out a similar experience in our own homes. Those experiences leave us wondering what exactly about that space had such a profound effect on our emotional state. Perhaps the mixture of all of the intimately considered design details when melded together, successfully elevated the space and brought us into a new state of being. So how does color inform emotion and what color palette can you choose to feel a specific way in your home?

Color Theory

Interior designers and artists across the globe have long asserted that color informs and influences human mood and emotion. The careful consideration of color within a space can have a profound effect on the psychological happenings of the inhabitant. From anxiety to depression, calmness to concentration, the color pallet can have a substantial impact on real human emotion. That’s why picking wall paint, furniture, and art while often overlooked, can literally change your life. People often admit to being turned off by a room if it doesn’t feel inviting. Not quite able to put their finger on the problem, many end up neglecting certain rooms in the house simply due to a bad color choice. That’s why we’re here to help inform your color decisions moving forward and hopefully ensure every room in the home is being used and loved by everyone.
“Color is a powerful communication tool and can be used to signal action, influence mood, and even influence physiological reactions. Certain colors have been associated with increased blood pressure, increased metabolism, and eyestrain.” -Kendra Cherry, VeryWellMind.com

The Basics: Warm vs. Cool

Warm tones include colors under the red category, such a red, orange, yellow, and some creams, and whites. These colors can cause us to feel an array of different emotions. Take the color red for example, which is considered the most extreme color of them all. Red can cause us to feel many different emotions, all of which are intense and moving. Anger, love, excitement, passion, power, and control are all possible emotional byproducts of red, depending on the shade, the context, and our own unique associative processing. Yet other colors under the warm category such as orange, yellow, and creams can influence us to feel comfort, love, security, happiness, excitement, and motivation.
Examining colors on the cool spectrum, such as blues, purples, greens, and whites, we can often experience a different side of emotions. Feeling calm, relaxed, soothed, and concentrated in cooler settings has been reported by many. Although research is relatively limited, many of us can relate to these findings. So, when planning your interiors, consider how you may want to feel within each space. For example, home offices should maybe have a cooler wall color like blue, green, or white to improve concentration and focus while remaining calm and relaxed.
Other Considerations

Lighting

Lighting feeds greatly into mood and emotion in interior spaces. Natural light, warm amber bulbs, and light-allowing glass will help to accentuate the space and elevate mood. Consider replacing normal walls with sliding glass walls and floor to ceiling sliding glass dividers to allow natural daytime light to flow through your interior spaces.

Pair thought-provoking art with your relative wall color to offer beautiful juxtapositions and influence your emotion in the space. If your wall color is simpler and paired-down, you’ll have more freedom to play with colorful pieces without running the risk of over-stimulation.

Furniture

Furnishings have an obvious effect on space, as does their color. The color pallet of the entire room needs to be considered and has to work harmoniously with the wall color, art, and textiles. Patterns and color can either elevate or distract. Make sure your furniture is
Keep these color considerations in mind when designing your interiors. When chasing that feeling of being transported to another time and place, color and light is key. Bring more light into your home with glass wall dividers and space-optimizing sliding glass doors, sliding closet doors, and sliding room dividers. For more inspiration and ideas on spatial solutions, don’t hesitate to check out the best offered at The Sliding Door Company. Visit Us Online to browse our online viewing catalog and Enjoy A Free Consultation from one of our team members to actualize your vision today!

TSDC 1020 – A

How to Reimagine the Least-Loved Rooms in the House

Interior Design Trends

During the past few months spent mostly indoors, we’ve had to exist within tight quarters amongst other roommates, significant others, and family. While everyone is home during daytime hours that previously were occupied by varying schedules, tensions have risen and the need for personal space has been at the forefront of almost everyone’s mind. Because we’ve spent so much time at home, we’ve been faced with our interiors and have in many cases, closely examined each and every inch of our interior space to an almost irritating extent. Luckily, a lot has been discovered about the way in which we exist in our homes, collectively and singularly.

If you’re like most Americans in a similar scenario, you’ve probably asked yourself multiple times how you could create more space in your home. Perhaps you have entire rooms serving an undefined purpose, or enabling some very unhealthy hoarding habits. That fact is, when we have more space, sometimes we simply don’t know what to do with it. That’s why were here to help you reimagine your least-loved rooms. To create more harmony within your interiors and reclaim some of your much-needed space. Here are the top tips for renewing your interiors.

Keep the Kitchen, Ditch the Home Gym

Keep in mind, that while home sizes in the US have expanded dramatically over the past fifty years, family sizes have considerably shrunk. This offers insight into how little we actually utilizing that extra square footage to our benefit. Homes with extra rooms, such as a second “holiday” dining room, or a home gym crammed into a spare bedroom, are practically never used. If this sounds familiar, consider reimagining how you could update those spaces to bring them into the current moment of your lifestyle needs. Consider splitting one of your spare bedrooms into a home office that utilizes glass wall dividers so that half of the room is for productivity, while the other half is for working out. It is rare that you would need a fully stocked home gym. Likely, if a gym is a necessity for you, you’d want a treadmill, a yoga mat station, some smaller sized weights, and perhaps an elliptical machine. That can all easily fit into one half of a normal-sized bedroom. The other half would get to enjoy a light-filled home office. Again, frosted glass office walls are a spatial solution to visually separate two distinct spaces, while affording you all the concentration you need for a productive WFH day.

Extra Dining Room

This excessive two-dining-room space taking design is a spatial dilemma for most modern-day homes. I’m not quite sure why so many architects chose to build an extra dining room only to be used on special occasions (roughly four times per year), but they did, so now the task is to figure out what to do with this very un-used, least-loved room in the house. Being apart from most main foot traffic, these spare dining rooms make for the perfect home theater, children’s play area, or art studio. Being most unaffected by other members of the house, these rooms afford you a sense of spatial retreat from the chaos and disruption of other populated common areas. Use this space as a meditation room or a place to unwind with a novel and a glass of red after a long day of work. For enhanced privacy, consider installing interior sliding doors with frosted glass panels that offer a wonderful barrier between your little retreat and the rest of the home.

The Two Car Garage

This is one area of the home so widely overlooked yet capitalizing on some of the largest square footage, that it had to be considered in this list. So many Americans with large two-car garages don’t ever park in the garage out of convenience. With an abundance of available room, and with little inspiration for what to do with it, garages quickly become a wasteland of discarded home furnishings, extra sporting equipment, tools, and a vast array of “extras” that never get used or enjoyed. The amount of material items we hold onto solely for sentimental value is ridiculous. These things end up causing us stress, money, and, valuable space. To effectively utilize that glorious unused square footage, you must begin to remove some of the dead weight and begin a very overdue organizational overhaul. Tackle your discarded personal belongings, and you can set yourself to enjoy your garage with infinite potential! A quiet home office with custom glass partitions, a yoga studio, a personal gym, kids play zone, or an art studio could all easily fit into your very unused and underappreciated garage.

In life, it’s all about creating space and utilizing the available solutions to evolve yourself and your life into a well functioning, harmonious balance. Home is no different. By transitioning your interiors into a cocoon that actually serves and inspires you, you can begin to fulfill your dreams, aspirations and enhance your overall enjoyment (not to mention, regaining some of your sanity in the process). For more inspiration and spatial solutions, don’t hesitate to check out the best space-optimizing sliding glass doors, sliding closet doors, and sliding room dividers offered at The Sliding Door Company. Visit Us Online to browse our online viewing catalog and Enjoy A Free Consultation from one of our team members to actualize your vision today!

TSDC 1010 – A

Save Money Where You Can During Economic Instability

Interior Design Trends

What do you do when everything in your life is falling into uncertainty due to the lockdowns brought on by COVID 19? Of course, many of us would like to hole up in a corner somewhere, close our eyes, and pretend like this was all a bad dream. While appealing, this may not remedy our stresses as much as we’d like. In order to regain footing during this crisis, we need to put one foot in front of the other and devise a plan of action moving forward. What strategies can you use to ensure financial stability, career optimism, and healthy home life?

Save Where You Can

By cutting back on large expenses, vacations, and unnecessary material goods you can begin to shave down your finances to the point where you only spend on the bare necessities. Rent, car insurance, phone, food, and other bills should take precedence over other frivolities during this time. The idea is to recognize what is an unnecessary purchase from what is truly needed to survive. Start there and then assess where you’re at in a few months. You should also be making a monthly budget derived from a realistic list of all of your expenses and then compare that with your current income as well as any government financial help and understand what your true budget is per month. Additionally, you may need to consider adding a roommate in order to afford rent or a mortgage. If you’re running a start-up or working freelance, consider constructing a home office in an open space within your home to cut down on the cost of renting an office space. Worried about being in the middle of your living room? Simple solution: Set up floor-to-ceiling glass wall partitions (glass room dividers) that you can customize and tailor to suit your unique needs. These walls are super easy to install and order online from the comfort of your home! The best part? You’ll have devised a separate sanctuary in which you can focus on work, free from distraction and surrounding foot traffic. Living with family or roommates has its obvious perks, but trying to work amongst them can be exceptionally trying. Think about even installing Sliding Room Dividers between the living room and kitchen so as to create two distinct spaces. Sliding glass barn doors are a fantastic solution for an open floor plan spatial configuration.

Create Balance in Your Home

With an unprecedented amount of time spent indoors and many of us working from home as well as children being forced to homeschool, we are experiencing a completely different home life reality. Something hard for many people to adapt to is nurturing the need for space, alone time, and above all else- balance. Without the ability to head off to the gym, enjoy a movie out at the theater, or get together with friends, we have found ourselves craving space and routine to keep us grounded and sane. Looking at the silver lining, we have all significantly decreased our spending on material goods, outings, vacations, and memberships over the past few months. This has allowed us to save and regain a bit of financial security in the process.

It is so important to have balance within your home and to take ownership of your indoor spaces in order to feel whole and maintain a healthy mental state. Even if you aren’t working from home, there is still need and value in creating more physical distinction from other family members and roommates in your living environment. That’s where Sliding Glass Wall Partitions come in handy. Without having to endure the cost and disruption of real construction, you can craft private, serene spaces in your home to escape. Consider making a yoga space, a home theater, or a small home gym with these wall partitions, a place to get away and enjoy some alone time.

For more inspiration and spatial solutions, don’t hesitate to check out the best space-optimizing sliding glass doors, Sliding Closet Doors, and sliding room dividers offered at The Sliding Door Company. Visit Us Online to browse our online viewing catalog and Enjoy A Free Consultation from one of our team members to actualize your vision today!

TSDC 1018