Whether you are planning to completely renovate your bathroom, updating all of the current fixtures and fittings, and maybe even changing the layout of the room, or you simply need to replace the shower door as it has seen better days, selecting a shower door is something that needs to be carefully considered. Not only does it play a big part in helping to achieve the desired look and feel of the room, but it performs a practical role too, ensuring water from the shower is not allowed to spill out of the enclosure into other parts of the room. Before looking at specific models of shower door, you first need to decide between framed shower doors and frameless shower doors. During this article we are going to point out some of the main differences between the two before going on to explain why frameless shower doors have experienced such a sharp rise in popularity in recent years.
What’s the Difference Between Frameless Shower Doors and Framed Shower Doors?
If you are older than 25 the chances are high that the shower in the home where you grew up had a framed door. That’s because frameless shower doors weren’t really produced on a large scale prior to the early 1990’s and even then the cost was so high initially that it prevented many people from purchasing them. Framed shower doors contain a frame right around their edges and are usually finished in either chrome or gold. On frameless shower doors, the framework around the edges of the door is absent or very minimal at the most and they often feature heavy duty hinges.
Benefits that Have Seen Frameless Shower Doors Grow in Popularity
- They Enhance the Appearance of Your Bathroom – The bathroom is one of the busiest areas of a standard home and you might be surprised to learn that the average person spends a total of approximately one and a half years of their lifetime in their bathroom. While it obviously needs to be highly functional, it also has to be aesthetically appealing too and that’s how frameless shower doors can help; they offer a striking modern look that simply oozes class.
- Minimal Maintenance – This is one area in which frameless shower doors really excel when compared to their framed counterparts. With framed doors, corrosion often builds up on the framing that spans the bottom of the door due to it being in constant contact with wet floor tiles. This isn’t an issue with frameless shower doors thought, since it is glass that comes into contact with the tiles, and glass is much more resistant to corrosion.
- Soft Edges Make Them Safe – Health and safety is an absolute must in the bathroom since damp patches on the floor could potentially lead to you accidentally slipping and hurting yourself. While glass is often associated with being sharp and dangerous, the edges on frameless shower doors are always filed down and soft, considerably reducing the chance of you sustaining an injury.
- Show off Your Tiles – Often great care is taken to ensure the tiles on the walls inside your shower are visually appealing but when a framed shower door is installed it’s almost impossible to see them when the door is closed, which is 95% of the time. Frameless shower doors put these tiles on full display and allow them to work with your other bathroom design features and contribute to the aesthetics of the room.
- Increase the Market Value of Your Home – While this might not interest you if you don’t ever see you selling your home, it is a nice added bonus, and you never know whether your circumstances will change. Studies have shown that for a large majority of the people that are scouring the housing market for a new home, a frameless shower door is a desirable feature, which helps to give your home’s market value a little boost.
- Longevity – Frameless shower doors have to be made of much thicker, tempered glass due to the lack of a frame, but this is hugely beneficial to their longevity. They may cost more to purchase upfront but in many cases they last years longer (although this will depend on the level of usage).
- Make Your Bathroom Feel Bigger – While bathrooms might see more use than practically any other room in the average property, they are often one of the smallest spaces in the whole house. Framed doors tend to seal off the shower area from the rest of the room, but frameless shower doors open that area up and make the bathroom look and feel bigger as a consequence.
Keystone Home Products Ltd supplies a wide range of high quality products for both residential and commercial properties, including frameless shower doors, shower enclosures, mirror walls and mirror sliding doors, among many other things. We have been operating since 1994, serving Toronto, Mississauga and Brampton.
