Tag: glass room dividers

Are Bi-fold Doors Worth It?

Interior Design Trends

Kitchen space with bi fold kitchen pantry doors

Glass doors continue to be a highly sought-after product across the US housing market and interior design trends. If you are planning a renovation, you might want to consider a modern glass bi-fold door. Bi-fold doors are, in many settings, functional and practical solutions to unique settings in your home. You may consider a bi-fold door because of the following reasons.

Bathroom space with bi fold doors — Left Pull Bi-fold Door

Space-Saving Bi-fold Doors

In a small footprint or tight location, a bi-fold door can be created to open and close inward or outward to be more convenient in your space. The Sliding Door Company offers left pull, right pull, and even double pull bi-fold door options. This style frees up floor space where it’s needed most—in cramped bedrooms, narrow hallways, small laundry rooms, and tiny pantries and linen closets. Additionally, you can easily move large furniture through and have more space on the sides of the door opening. Even in very small openings, a bi-fold door may be a better choice for your needs than a traditional door.

Are Bi-fold Doors Expensive?

Bi-fold doors are quick and painless to configure and install. Depending on all the specifications, there are situations in which this solution can be more budget-friendly than alternative options. Bi-fold doors are more current and popular than old-fashioned pocket doors and accordion doors. Especially with our timeless glass and sleek frames, you can find the best cost-effective bi-fold doors for your home.

Double pull bi-fold door — Double Pull Bi-fold Door

Privacy with Bi-fold Doors

Fully flush to the wall in which the panel is created, when closed, the bi-fold door keeps a separation between the rooms it divides. Choose from a wide range of glass opacities to find the right mix of maximizing natural light while creating your desired level of privacy. Folding the door back opens up your space.

Where to install a Bi-fold Door?

Bi-fold doors are a smart choice for your:

Bedroom closets
Coat closets
Laundry closets
Children’s playrooms
Linen closets
Home offices
Kitchen pantries
Wine storage
Narrow hallways
Unconventional layouts
Tiny homes

Bi-fold Door Types

Our high-quality Bi-fold System offers a stunning, brilliant solution to any workspace, home or children’s playroom. Since it allows the doors to fold towards the edge of the frame, this optimizes the space and is suitable for narrow closets or ‘phone booth’ type applications as well as larger spaces to allow access through almost the entire width of the opening.

In addition, our bi-fold doors are safe for your fingers! Our unique anti-finger pinch system sets this Bi-fold System apart from any other in the industry. Reach out to learn more about all our options!

Optimize Your Office Space with Interior Glass Doors and Partitions

Commercial

We know there are many options to increase the quality and productivity of your office workspace. Here we explore a few options and their benefits.

According to Jory MacKay, “few things affect our productivity as much as what we surround ourselves with. Yet most of us rarely take the time to step back and really analyze our working environment.”

We couldn’t agree more, and that is why we designed our interior glass door solutions to optimize your work area and uplift any occupants of the space. The options are endless, from single fixed panels and partitions, to rows of glass cubicles for coworking needs.

This private office space below includes our floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors, paired with a swing door, with designer handles and recessed bottom tracks. When the doors are open, it’s a free-flowing collaborative workspace. But when quiet and privacy are needed, the doors can be shut and locked accordingly.

Floor to celing glass panels with swing door

Clutter-free, Organized Workspaces Boost Productivity

The results of this study tell us that physical clutter in your surroundings competes for your attention, resulting in decreased performance and increased stress.

Similar to what multitasking does to your brain, physical clutter overloads your senses, making you feel stressed, and impairs your ability to think creatively. Set time aside each month to assess your workspace and ensure it is not too cluttered. This will lead to increased productivity and morale. Our modern cubicles are a great way to give employees room to work and also set boundaries.

Optimize Your Space & Allow Natural Light To Come In

Glass room dividers with combo glass (bottom half frosted, top half clear) provide a unique workspace allowing in a ton of natural light. Plus, our space-saving glass wall and aluminum frames are all recyclable and perfect for green construction projects.

Smaller “phone booth” workspace options give plenty of room for a team of 2 or 3 to create, collaborate and solve! The open-air design allows for the sharing of lighting, heating, and air conditioning, saving energy costs year over year.

Optimize Functionality

The many benefits of our interior workspace solutions:

Strategically optimizing of every square foot of your floor plan.
Lighting, air conditioning and heating can be shared, eliminating the need to move or re-do the HVAC system…saving tons of money.
Each work area can be re-purposed on the fly if needed as the business evolves. Talk about flexibility!
Offices with glass sliders or swing doors can be locked and even master-keyed to the storefront or building door.

We make our interior glass doors in our own factory where safety and quality are carefully fabricated into every single glass door.

The selection of glass types, frame color finishes and ADA-compliant accessories provide our clients with sustainable, functional and stylish options to suit their specific project needs.

Optimizing every fraction of your floor plan by creating spaces that can be re-purposed as technology changes and as the business grows is essential. Functional glass office dividers, storage enclosures, glass partitions and conference room dividers are our specialty.

Want help choosing the right office option for your space? Contact the friendly interior glass door experts at The Sliding Door Company, to learn more about our workspace solutions.

Why the Glass Office Is Here to Stay

Commercial

Conference room privacy glass room dividers

Every year, offices get smaller—by at least 30 percent—and, every day, they get more transparent. Sliding glass doors have replaced solid hunks of wood and metal. See-through partitions and glass walls now rise up where tiny cubicles once stood. Welcome to the glass office of the 21st century: small and sustainable, bright and beautiful.

The Space Challenge

Businesses today face a tough challenge: maximize space in an increasingly cramped world. As square footage gets scarcer and scarcer, finding extra legroom becomes more and more difficult. How do you downsize without giving your employees a bad case of claustrophobia?

For one, you can install sliding room dividers and doors. Not only do they make an office look and feel bigger; they also cut down on wasted space. Gone are those large “dead” zones in front of swing doors. Sliding glass doors open with an easy horizontal movement.

Replacing conventional office doors with glass allows designers and their clients to skirt common design challenges. It means they can place private workspaces and conference rooms in previously taboo places like hallways or other confined spaces that can’t accommodate the clearance zones needed for swinging doors. In an era when every square foot matters, that can make all the difference.

The Light Challenge

If space is scarce, then light is a precious commodity. Particularly in North America, where offices often cover a large plot of ground, it’s hard to get natural light into the deep nooks and crannies of a building. The only alternative is to install expensive lighting fixtures—and lots of them.

That’s a deal-breaker for many executives and entrepreneurs. Electric light (of any variety) is no substitute for natural light, which has been proven to elevate mood, promote health, and raise productivity.

Then there are energy costs to consider. It takes a lot of money to illuminate an otherwise dim office—unless you can find a way to bring sunlight into the deep, dark recesses of your office. The easiest way to do that is to replace solid, light-blocking walls with glass. With a simple change of materials, you get more light and less sticker shock.

The Privacy Challenge

As time goes on, more employers realize the benefits of glass. That has led to an explosion in the popularity of glass office walls and doors. Still, some have concerns. What about privacy? How about echoes?

Enter the privacy wall—a partition made of frosted or smoked glass. The best part is that each wall can be customized to meet particular needs. Some businesses choose fully frosted office partition walls. Others opt for a half-and-half arrangement.

Another popular strategy is to put a frosted strip across the center of glass room partitions. That way, employees get plenty of light and visibility, without the complete openness that comes with full transparency.

Half frosted glass partition wall divides meeting room space

Embracing the Glass Office

There are as many reasons to embrace a glass office as there are offices in the world. Every business has its own unique set of concerns—health, privacy, productivity, energy costs, sustainability, openness, collaboration.

The popularity of glass fixtures owes largely to the fact that they satisfy such a broad spectrum of needs. Only with glass can you balance privacy and openness, collaboration and individuality, aesthetics and economics. Only with glass can you economize on space while getting an expansive design—all of which is why the glass office is here to stay.

Home office space divided by two clear glass panels with glass swing door

Want to know how you can take your office space from humdrum to spectacular? Contact the friendly interior glass door experts at The Sliding Door Company, to learn more about our workspace solutions for the 21st century.

Transform Your Workspace with Glass Partitions and Doors Solutions

Commercial

Row of corporate offices including glass walls, swing doors and fixed panels

At The Sliding Door Company, we don’t just build the sturdiest, safest, most beautiful glass partitions and doors on the market. We also help businesses cut costs, improve health, boost, productivity, comply with government regulations, and become more sustainable. In other words, we provide so much more than doors; we transform space and elevate offices.

So, what makes our sliding glass doors so special?

They’re People-Friendly Glass Doors

At The Sliding Door Company, we love people. That’s why we make doors that are easy to buy, easy to install, and easy to use. Starting with our safe, tempered glass and easy-glide track systems, we put safety and usability at the top of our agenda. We also offer a wide selection of ADA-compliant handles, so that organizations never have to worry about compliance and people with disabilities never have to worry about access.

Enclosed glass corner office with modern sliding doors

Environmentally Friendly Glass Doors

Our doors are easy on people and on the environment. Not only do we use eco-friendly materials, but our room partitions reduce energy use by allowing light, air, and heat to circulate from one space to another. That helps businesses save money and set themselves on a greener, more sustainable footing.

Glass Doors or Walls are Easy to Install

In most cases, if you want to install new doors or walls, you have to call in a construction team. You have to tear down existing walls and throw up new structural components. Not with glass office dividers and sliding glass doors from The Sliding Door Company. Since they don’t require any structural support, you don’t need to put your business on hold while you gather construction permits and gut your building.

Custom Built Design Glass Walls and Doors

We don’t mass-produce our office partitions and glass door cubicles. Instead, we build each one to meet our client’s specific needs. The result is that our doors aren’t cookie-cutter “products.” They’re unique, custom-built interior design elements designed to fit the style and function of any work environment. By specializing only in manufacturing interior design solutions, we’re able to devote all of our time and energy to crafting the perfect door for any workspace.

Versatile Interior Glass Products

Whatever kind of door you want, we make it—sliding, stacking, swinging, suspended. Need fixed glass walls? We make those, too. We also serve a diverse set of clients in nearly every industry.

Emergency rooms, doctor’s offices, clinics, and other healthcare facilities use our sliding doors and office partitions to create a clean, hygienic space. Patients get privacy when they need it, and the staff gets maximum visibility when they need it.

Hotels, restaurants, and conference centers and other hospitality venues install glass walls and room partitions to offer the best customer experience—a flexible mix of elegance, privacy, and visibility. Offices, schools, and government buildings use them to increase openness and versatility.

Factory Direct Glass Doors

Most manufacturers suffer from a fragmentation problem. One company designs the products, another builds them, and yet another sells them. The problem is that one hand never seems to talk to the other. Quality suffers. The customer experience becomes a nightmare.

When you order from The Sliding Door Company, you can be sure of one thing: We never subcontract our work out to others. All we do is cut out the dreaded middleman—we manufacture each one of our sliding doors in our own facility. That allows us to ensure quality, offer customized options, and provide personal service.

From the moment you step into The Sliding Door Company showroom, you’ll come face-to-face with an incredible support team made up of inside and outside account executives. They’ll be there to offer guidance at every step of your interior design journey, helping you select the doors that are right for your project.

Schedule a consultation with The Sliding Door Company, to experience the difference that quality, safety, and service make.

The Benefits of Glass Sliding Doors – Privacy and so much more

Various types of sliding glass doors, room dividers, and office partitions

A privacy wall or glass partition is a great substitution for standard drywall or typical fabric panels that can offer an upgraded modern look to any professional or residential space without compromising the privacy of occupants or workers. Privacy walls are available in a variety of designs and customizable—with an assortment of glass opacities to choose from to create privacy.

Types of Glass Opacities

While curtains, drapes, and blinds are the usual solutions for glass doors and windows, our glass opacities give you the privacy you want while maintaining a refined and contemporary aesthetic. We offer a diverse selection of glass opacities, which include:

Milky
Opaque Laminated
Frosted
Linen
Combo Glass
Clear
Smoked Clear
Smoked Frosted
Black
White Laminated
Deluxe White
Smoked Milky

What are glass privacy walls?

A privacy wall can be anything from a glass partition to glass sliding room dividers. Depending on your individual needs, you may need one or a combination of products to receive optimal results.

Glass Partition

Glass partitions, for example, are the perfect solution for common office buildings. Fabric cubicle panels typically leave workers isolated from their surroundings and limit the amount of natural light they get, which can result in lower productivity levels and despondency among workers.

Glass partitions with a specialized opaque finish allow workers to feel connected to their environment while still maintaining separation and privacy. In addition, regular exposure to natural light has been reported among scientists to increase individual productivity and comfort, as well as provide mental and visual stimulation necessary to regulate our sleep/wake cycle.

Fixed privacy wall for partitioning office employee workstations

Sliding Glass Doors and Room Dividers

Sliding glass doors and sliding room dividers with a combo glass or opaque finish are the ultimate solution for those who want the flexibility to create and adjust a customizable space.

For example, you can change the entire atmosphere of a conference room with sliding glass doors simply by opening or closing said doors. Completely closed doors allow the space to become a perfect spot for confidential meetings or can be left partially open to create a welcoming space for an office party or casual gathering.

Office row utilizing sliding room dividers with custom film

Benefits of Glass Privacy Walls

A glass privacy wall has a number of benefits, including:

Instantly gives spaces an upgraded and modern look with glass opacities.
Creates the illusion of an open floor plan, without compromising individual privacy or separation.
Offers flexibility to create and design a space for various circumstances.
Allows more natural light to move through the space, which can increase productivity and happiness among workers.
They are a cost-efficient solution that can lead to energy savings and decreased maintenance costs.

Customizable Glass Solutions

No matter what type of privacy wall you want The Sliding Door Company has the solution for every space — whether it is a residential building, classroom, office, or another professional facility. Call 888-988-5033 to request your free consultation or fill out our online form to get started today.

Changing Workplaces for the Better: The Effects of COVID-19

Employee sitting at work with a face mask in an office setting separated by glass partitions

If you’re a business owner you’re likely feeling both trepidation and urgency when it comes to re-opening your business in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. While it would be alarming to resume operations after a global pandemic, there is the looming cloud of further COVID-19 outbreaks on the horizon for you to contend with as well.

So, now that office life has changed due to COVID-19, how do you keep your workforce not only safe but productive? Thankfully safety and productivity can go hand in hand. A staff that feels secure is going to be able to focus and perform better than if they were worried about contracting a potentially deadly virus at work.

While these new workforce trends and the changes they entail may seem daunting, they will likely improve the overall quality of your workforce’s performance.

Traditional Workplaces Compared to During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Experts agree the traditional way of working before COVID-19 is over. Before COVID-19 working from home was generally either frowned upon or a unique privilege when allowed. But now, the future of the workplace includes more options to work remotely. Before COVID-19 workers would commute from home to the office building, where they would then share space with their co-workers. Many offices are comprised of open-air cubicles where airspace and germs were freely shared. Not only was the workspace shared, but bathrooms, kitchens, and break rooms were as well. While this model allows for better communication and collaboration, with the risks of the pandemic, some of these qualities need to change to keep people safe.

How to Elevate Alternative Workspaces

To prepare your employee workstations for a return to work after the first wave of the pandemic, there are three key ways to keep your employees safe.

The first way is very simple—provide hand sanitizer at each workstation. This will allow your employees to sanitize their hands regularly and is a main piece of any COVID-19 workplace guidelines.
The second way to support employee safety as people return to work is to create physical distance between employee workstations whenever possible. This may take some creativity and will tie into the third piece of many COVID-19 workplace guidelines, physical barriers.
The third way to protect your employees, especially when physical space isn’t an option, is to use physical dividers. This is a great example of how these new workforce trends can create improvements in the workforce. Having physical dividers between employee workstations can increase a sense of privacy and cut out distractions in the form of noise from other workers. The sense of separation may allow workers to focus better on their job, while also offering physical protection from not only the COVID-19 virus but other germs and bugs as well, such as the flu or common cold. Making these physical divisions as flexible and attractive as possible sets up both the business and the individual employee for success. Using products like the ones offered by The Sliding Door Company would allow an office to customize its design for both function and aesthetics.

Designate Physical Separation with Partitions or Sliding Dividers

Whether you want sliding pocket doors for your cubicles or glass barn doors to enclose a previously open conference room, The Sliding Door Company offers a variety of ethically sourced and quality-made spatial solutions for every business. From the thickness of glass to beautiful custom finishes including wood and metal framing, The Sliding Door Company can design a custom build to fit any office.

Here are a few examples of how The Sliding Door Company can work with specific businesses:

Dental offices and other healthcare businesses are at the front line of the pandemic, making their need for physical dividers between their employees and patients paramount. The Sliding Door Company’s glass door solutions allow privacy when needed for patient consultations, but also can open easily to maximize space and light.
Schools are also hotspots for COVID-19 but must also be able to provide space for learning and collaboration. The Sliding Door Company’s classroom solutions provide privacy and curb the spread of germs, while letting in light and their quality materials offer safety to the students and teachers.
Commercial retail spaces have borne the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic, second only to healthcare spaces. The Sliding Door Company’s glass wall systems help businesses save on energy costs and create the physical separation necessary to keep retail employees healthy and safe.

Cost Matters for New Divided Floor Plan

If the cost of creating a new divided floor plan has you worried, The Sliding Door Company is here to help. With their professional team of specialists, you can be confident that they’ll work with you to create a spatial division plan that works for your budget and your space. The Sliding Door Company prides itself on client communication so that they can make the project of your dreams become reality.

Part of how The Sliding Door Company can so confidently work within your budget while also offering materials of the highest quality is that they manufacture all their products in their own factory. This allows them to manage the quality of their products from production to installation, giving you peace of mind about the quality of this latest budget expenditure. Because they make their products with no middlemen involved, this allows them to pass savings onto their customers, while still providing products of the highest quality.

You can also rest assured knowing that The Sliding Door Company focuses on using recycled and environmentally friendly materials, which will likely mean a lot to your staff as well. Whatever your office space needs are in this era of COVID-19, The Sliding Door Company is here to help.

Gift-Giving Guide for this Holiday Season

Interior Design Trends

With Christmas less than three weeks away and the holidays on the mind, now is a great time to start planning presents and drafting up your special list. It would be fair to say that this year, our needs and wants look a little different than in years past. Our 2020 Christmas (or Hanukkah) list reflects the current times. And besides many of us craving a much-needed vacation, another 2020 necessity has been some solid personal space. This need feels particularly evident these days, as we head into the colder winter months and opportunities for solo outdoors time becomes sparse. Especially for those living in snowy states, the option to get away for a nice outside stroll alone to absorb some much needed Vitamin D doesn’t exactly present itself. But we really do need solitary time away from our family or roommates in order to find inner peace and clarity between the chaos of the holidays. Moving forward into the new year, we may have to take these matters into our own hands.

With the top gift-giving holidays just around the corner, now is the perfect time to ask for (or gift) those home goods and interior upgrades you’ve been patiently waiting for all year. After all, home has become our own little universe this year. Why not invest in our relative surroundings?

And in our opinion, the best gift of this season is to create space where it doesn’t exist. As we stay home and stay safe we must come up with creative ways to find sanctuary and solitary within an otherwise shared indoor environment. So how can you make it happen this holiday season? Below is our 2020 gift-giving and wishing guide to help inspire you this December. After all, time is ticking!

Outdoor Heating

Heating is an obvious essential, even more so these days when our interiors are inundated with the entire household. Inside only allows so much space so having the option to get outside for some solo (or shared) time will make a huge difference this winter. Consider springing for an outdoor fire pit or a propane heater for the backyard. This gift will allow you and your family to get some fresh air and spend time outdoors during the cold winter months, or give you the opportunity to escape from the noise and chaos inside! Enjoy these heating options during socially distanced get-togethers with friends and family and stay warm while staying safe.

Bring the Fun To You

With restaurants and vacation rentals closing their doors yet again, there are few options for taking that exciting winter vacation this year. The solution? Bring the fun to you! Pick up a handful of board games (both new and old classics) and enjoy a little healthy competition with friends or family around the fire! Also worth considering? Larger interactive activities like a pool table or an air hockey machine. Not only are these super fun pastimes, but they are great at distracting the kids during your grueling work-from-home schedule. A win-win!

Make Some Space

Our last (but not least) gift idea is a breezy solution for creating space out of thin air. What could possibly do that? You may be wondering. Well, sliding glass wall partitions from The Sliding Door Company do that. These glass dividers and sliding glass doors are not only extremely easy to order and install, but they are uniquely customizable and offer the flexibility you can’t find elsewhere. The Sliding Door Company offers its glass room dividers in hundreds of varying configurations, sizes, glass opacities, and accessories all intended to suit your interior needs perfectly. From sliding glass barn doors to bathroom pocket doors, these spatial solutions integrate flawlessly into larger shared spaces or rooms within your home all while maintaining a beautiful aesthetic.

So if you’re like the millions of Americans who crave to bring peace, privacy, and productivity into the home, these solutions are for you. Whether these dividers will be used to construct your new home gym, your much-needed Work-From-Home office space, or as a play-place for the kids, you’ll be wishing you’d invested in them sooner. With the Sliding Door Company’s glass wall partitions, the options are truly endless! Check us out online today and schedule a free consultation with one of our team members. View our online catalog and see what glass solution suits your needs specifically! Order today and have them in time for the holidays!

Why Working For Yourself Has Become the New Norm

Glass Door Solutions

Bedroom closet frosted glass sliding door

Over the past few months, since the Coronavirus outbreak swept the globe, many of us have been gifted with the intangible, fleeting, priceless, gift of time. With this, we have been able to reevaluate our lives to an extent most of us didn’t think was possible. Considering our relative happiness, our careers, our relationships, and our impact on the environment were all themes that came up.

Soon after we stopped scratching our heads and were able to move past the fear and uncertainty, this time provided us with novel clarity and focus. We were able to peel back the layers that are normally tightly bound by our restrictive schedules and ask ourselves if the system in place, the standard 9-5 office workday was what we really needed. If it was what we wanted, even. For many, after the initial shock and daunting task of creating our own daily schedules passed, we came to the conclusion that crafting our individualized work/life balance actually worked in our favor.

With so many aspects of our working life laid out on the table to be rearranged and reimagined, we were able to finally envisage our new norm. To outline the clear benefits and perks of becoming our own boss. Yet, to effectively transition from a formal salary job into a more flexible freelance career or startup position is not exactly a cakewalk. It takes countless hours of hard work, overtime, and other undiscovered sacrifices along the way. However, over time we’ll come to experience how the risks are well with the rewards. Here are some of the main reasons why working for yourself has become the new norm.

Make Your Day Work For You

When you work freelance (or simply removed from the 9-5 parameters) your day suddenly opens up to potentialities, changes to your working environment, and makes room for added meetings, activities, and exercise that will keep your mind, body, and spirit in balanced harmony. Crafting your own schedule allows you to feel your way into the workday and discover how to integrate work around your natural sleep schedule, your family dynamic, children’s extracurriculars, or your physical necessities. Subscribing to a one-size-fits-all routine can detract from your happiness, health, and emotional relationships. What’s more, if you make your own working hours, you can choose to grind during odd hours of the day rather than sacrificing peak daylight hours that every human needs to thrive. Working for yourself, either from home or at a communal workspace such as a WeWork, you can still maintain solid focus and productivity. The only difference is that you stop adhering to someone else’s version of what’s right for you and your internal functions.

Frosted glass sliding door divides living room space

Open Opportunity to Develop Personal Projects

By setting your own parameters and schedule, it is much easier to reserve time for creative endeavors, personal projects, or physical goals. The nine to five schedule makes it difficult for people to delve into actualizing personal goals or careers because the day simply doesn’t afford the time needed to develop these projects. It’s easy to become discouraged from developing a startup, or crafting a home-grown business when the forty-hour workweek takes the majority of the day. Even holding a secondary job such as a yoga instructor, a tutor, or even a painter, can feel impossible when commuting to work every day of the workweek. By integrating work into your home, you can effectively work freelance, maintain the same perks of a well-paying job, but not sacrifice your life schedule.

Ditch the Commute!

The main fear most people encounter when deciding to work freelance or not is the concern of not having an available home office. While this understandably poses a problem, there are few helpful spatial solutions to integrate to give yourself that needed office environment, without compromising your interior aesthetic. Consider integrating glass room dividers into a corner of your home that happens to have extra unused space. Glass wall partitions, in particular, are a super breezy and stylish way to create separation between two distinct spaces. Without sacrificing your artistic interiors, you can install sliding glass barn doors to effectively achieve that rustic look with a modern twist, all while integrating real walls for your new home office! Making sure you have a productive working environment will make all the difference when adopting a freelance, startup lifestyle.

With all of the added benefits of being your own boss, creating your own work schedule, and making your workday work for you, hopefully, you’ll have enhanced inspiration moving forward out of the COVID 19 crisis. For more inspiration and space optimizing solutions, don’t hesitate to check out the best sliding closet doors, tri-fold dividers, sliding room dividers, and spatial solutions 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!

Separate but Free: How Glass Room Dividers Solve the Open Floor Plan Problem

Glass Door Solutions

Open floor plans can make even the tightest spaces feel more roomy and hospitable. Such free-flowing designs have been a feature of American homes for over one hundred years, but they became popular on a broad scale around the middle of the last century when modernism prevailed over more traditional architectural styles. Now, glass room dividers are redefining “openness.” In doing so, they’re once again transforming the American home.

A Complicated Love Affair

Since the mid-20^th century, Americans have engaged in an on-again/off-again relationship with the open floor plan. Some homeowners embrace the freedom, spaciousness, and visibility of wide open layouts. They want their living spaces to be connected rather than severed and disjointed. Others bemoan the lack of structure and organization.
The critics have a point. There’s something tidy about closed floor plans. Each room has its own purpose, its own distinct style. When someone walks through the doorway that separates the living room from the study, they know they’re entering a new space with its own raison d’être, its own style, and its own “feeling.” Opponents of an open floor plan believe that you lose something important when you tear down the walls.

A Happy Medium

Then there are those who take the middle ground. They like the thought of an open floor plan—the bright airiness and free-flowing spaciousness—but they haven’t yet given up on the notion of separate rooms. They’re constantly searching for a happy medium between the two extremes.
Many of them have found the perfect solution in glass room dividers and interior glass doors. Glass doesn’t block light or obstruct views. It does, however, draw a clear line that lets everyone know where one room ends and another begins. With glass, a designer can create separate “zones” within a home without tearing the space apart.
In other words, glass walls and sliding doors combine the best of both styles. They let homeowners cordon off space while still maintaining visibility, connection, and openness—key traits of the much-admired open floor plan.

A Modern Solution to an Age-Old Problem

Sliding glass doors and glass room dividers belong to the modern world, with its emphasis on simplicity and openness. That being said, glass is versatile enough to fit in almost any home, from urban lofts to traditional farmhouses.
That’s particularly true given the wide range of custom options available. At The Sliding Door Company, for example, designers and homeowners can choose from more than a dozen different types of glass and nearly half-a-dozen styles and frames.
Those searching for an ultra-modern look often prefer a Solo design featuring a single pane of uninterrupted glass, while a Continental design, with its metal or other color frame finishes, is perfect for those who want to combine the contemporary with the classic. Of course, a good designer can make any style divider work well in almost any interior. The key is to have a plan.
When it comes to function, glass also gives people a great deal of freedom. Those who want a good balance between privacy and light can opt for frosted or smoked glass. Those who want maximum visibility can stick with clear glass, which also tends to fit well in more modern interiors. Homeowners can close them when they want to seal off a space and open them when they want full visibility and access.

Transform Your Interior

Want the best of both worlds? Whether you’re a designer or a homeowner, The Sliding Door Company can help you choose the glass room dividers and sliding glass doors that match your interior.
Come see for yourself. Visit one of our many showrooms located throughout the United States.
Schedule a consultation today.

6 Easy Ways to Prepare Your Home for Spring

Glass Door Solutions

Winter’s over. It’s time to turn off the fireplace and stow away the blankets. Now that it’s spring, you want sun. You want space. You want to feel free and lighthearted rather than cozy and cooped up—but how do you make the transition from the most frigid season to the most joyous season? From glass room dividers to banana leaves, here are six ideas for a spring refresher.
Replace Solid Walls with Glass Room Dividers
Glass door room dividers open up a house, letting the sunlight in and giving the entire space an open, airy feel. In other words, it’s a perfect renovation project for spring, when the sun comes out and the whole world looks just a little bit fresher and a little bit happier. Although many people save glass partitions for the big rooms, such as the living room or dining room, room dividers for the bedroom also make a smart investment, particularly if you want the room to look bigger and brighter.

Replace Solid Doors with Glass Doors

In addition to room dividers, consider replacing solid doors with sliding glass doors to free up floor space and let the light flow unhindered from room to room. At the end of the day, it’s a relatively painless way to reimagine your interior. Unless you’re tearing down an existing wall, installing a new room divider requires no major construction.

Rearrange the Furniture

There are ways to rearrange furniture that make your interior feel fresher and more expansive. By getting rid of unnecessary pieces and separating large furnishings, you can free up space for foot traffic. Try a little harder, and you might also have room to meditate or even do some yoga. When rearranging, pay close attention to the flow of the room. The best part? It’s free.

Simplify Your Life

Most people do some sort of spring cleaning between March and June, but how many make a concerted effort to clear the clutter out of their lives? We’re not just talking about old mail. If you really want to get back to basics, go through the house and figure out what you don’t need. Send area rugs away for cleaning, stow away the knickknacks, pare down the decorations, and cover the upholstery with slipcovers. In other words, you don’t have to throw anything out in order to simplify your life.

Bring Out the Foliage

The flowers are blossoming outside, so why not bring a floral freshness inside? If you’re not allergic and don’t mind watering every now and then, consider a bouquet of hydrangeas, purple orchids, or peonies. If you prefer more low-maintenance foliage, then consider succulents. Statement leaves (e.g., banana leaves and philodendron leaves) also make for great spring décor.

Add a Splash of Color

There are many of ways to add color to your home, whether you paint the walls, replace the pillows and blankets, buy new kitchen chairs, or invest in new vases. Now that the passion for minimalism has receded, you can embrace brighter colors without fear of disapproval. Need ideas? Gelato colors are hot this year, as are indigo blues and “glittery” gold.
Visit our gallery for more ideas on how you can use sliding glass doors and glass room dividers to liven up your space for spring.