Putting Clear Glass Panels to Work

/in /by

Installing a frameless glass shower enclosure is a great way to bring the beauty and benefits of glass into your home. But it’s not the only way that glass can help to make your home more functional and more stylish.

Does your home look out over the waters of the Intracoastal Waterway, the Atlantic Ocean or even a scenic lake? Clear glass balcony railings are a great way to get more pleasure and enjoyment out of your beautiful view. But that’s just the start!

Ever since Covid-19 changed the way we work, people have been struggling to set up home offices that allow them to be productive during their working hours without reducing the comfort and functionality of the house for the other hours of the day.

Getting Down to Business with Glass

Glass ceilings in the workplace are meant to be shattered, but there are ways that clear glass panels can be used to great advantage in a home office. 

Glass Walls/Panels

Frosted glass or etched glass can provide privacy without sacrificing the flow of natural light in your space. They are also a wonderful way to divide up a space without making things feel too small or cramped. 

Glass windows and sliders

In addition to providing lots of beneficial natural light, they can reduce noise.

Glass Railings

If you have an awkward or underutilized space at the top of your stairs or along an upper-level gallery, glass railings can help transform it into a bright and airy workspace for you or for the kids. 

Glass topped furniture

Heavy, dark furniture can make what could otherwise be an intimate and charming space feel crowded and claustrophobic. The savvy use of glass for your workspace – whether as the surface for your desk, a glass tabletop or glass shelving used in place of a bookcase or credenza – can help to create a light and breezy atmosphere.

If you are interested in more innovative design ideas involving glass or would like to request a free estimate on a clear glass shower enclosure, please contact us.

The Benefits of Using Low-Iron Glass for Your Shower Enclosure

/in /by

There are lots of great reasons to update your bathroom with a beautiful clear glass shower enclosure. It will make your bathroom feel more open and larger as well as more modern and stylish. Once you have decided to install a glass shower enclosure, however, you still have to decide what type of glass you want to use.

There are a variety of different types of glass that are suitable for frameless shower enclosures. There are benefits to all of them. Deciding which one is right for you will depend on your project and your aesthetics.

Glass Options for Your Shower Enclosure

At Florida State Glass and Mirror, which sells and installs clear glass shower panels and glass railings in South Florida, from Jupiter to Fort Lauderdale, we offer our clientele a wide variety of glass types, including: 

  • Clear Glass
  • Low-Iron Glass
  • Frosted Glass
  • Rain Glass
  • Bronze Glass
  • Gray Glass
  • Low-Iron Frosted Glass
  • Etched Glass

 

Low-Iron Glass

Low Iron Glass is the one we often get questions about so, we thought we would take this opportunity to focus in on this exciting glass option.

Have you ever noticed that if you look at the edge of a sheet of glass or window, the side appears to be green? That slight coloration comes from the presence of iron in the glass. It is the most common choice in a variety of applications.

Low Iron Glass, as the name implies, is made with less iron. You might be able to detect a very slight greenish cast, but for all intents and purposes it is colorless in appearance. This offers a number of benefits: 

  • Exceptional clarity
  • Higher light transmission
  • The true colors of your shower tiles can be seen through a low-iron glass shower enclosure.

 

Low iron glass is a slightly more expensive option for clear glass shower enclosures, but if you are investing in some of the amazingly distinctive shower tiles available today as part of your new bathroom décor, you might consider the price well worth it.

For more information about Low Iron Glass and the other glass options available for your new glass shower panels – or for your new frameless glass balcony railings – please contact us.

The History of the Shower: Part 3

/in /by

Bathtubs were the only game in town for most of human history. Sometimes, they would be set off from the rest of the room where they were located by a screen to offer some privacy in the days before there were actual rooms dedicated to the act of bathing and person hygiene, but even as the 18th century was dawning, we still weren’t even close for the need for someone to invent the shower curtain, let alone something as advanced in both form and function as frameless glass shower enclosures.

Things Are Heating Up!

As Kaushik Patowary explains in a post about the History of Showering found on Amusing Planet, it was advances in medicine and epidemiology that spurred a renewed interest in keeping clean.

As Patowary points out, though, there were drawbacks. “Bathtubs were large and needed a lot of water to fill, which had to be heated and carried to the bathroom from the kitchen in buckets. It involved a lot of labor.”

It wasn’t until 1767, when William Feetham was given a patent for the first mechanized shower. It never really caught on for two reasons: 

  1. The water in its tank was used over and over again over the course of your shower, so the cleaner you got, the dirtier the water that you were showering in was.
  2. It used cold water. (Ironically, Feetham was a stove maker.)

 

The first hot shower, the English Regency Shower, came along in 1810, but it still reused the water. It wasn’t until the second half of the 19th century that things really started heating up.

“In 1868, an English painter named Benjamin Waddy Maughan invented a water heater that, for the first time, did not use solid fuel. Instead, water was heated using hot gases generated by a burner. Unfortunately, Maughan forgot to add a ventilation causing the burner to sometimes explode,” Patowary’s history of showering reports.

“Maughan’s design was improved by a Norwegian mechanical engineer named Edwin Ruud, and in 1889, the first safe, automatic, gas-powered water heater was invented and a new era of warm showers began,” Patowary says.

It still took time for not only the technology but the cultural attitudes surrounding bathing and showering evolved enough to usher in the era of the clear glass shower enclosure.

If you are more interested in the future of showers – particularly your shower – and would like to talk about frameless glass shower panel options, please contact us.