Practicality, safety, and a dash of personal style are essential to effective shower screen design. This article is about helping you understand the ins and outs of shower screen design and providing ideas to create a shower solution for your bathroom.
A shower screen, in essence, is your frontline soldier against water making a mess of your bathroom. It keeps the rest of your bathroom dry while you’re splashing about inside it. They’re a clean and efficient alternative to shower curtains, which can be tricky to keep clean and often cause mould and mildew in your bathroom.
There are a ton of designs on the market, and as one of Perth’s leading glaziers, we are responsible for driving a lot of creativity in the field of custom shower screen design.
Shower Screen Design Considerations
Before you get started on picking out a shower screen, you’ve got to take stock of your bathroom. How much space have you got? What’s your bathroom’s layout like? You’ll also want to think about your bathroom’s style – are you going for a classic look, or something a bit more cutting-edge? Is there an existing colour scheme that you’d like to uphold?
It’s not just about how your shower screen looks, though. It’s also about how it works. You might want to think about privacy too, especially if you’re sharing your bathroom.
Glass Type
You’ve got your clear glass screens, frosted or textured glass screens, and even tinted glass. Each has its own style and functionality, so there’s something for every bathroom. Each glass type has its own properties and how it will influence the overall look and feel of the bathroom.
Clear and Classy
The vast majority of screens use standard clear toughened glass. For most people, privacy is not a requirement, but privacy and budget are not the only factors in choosing clear glass.
The following images are examples of bathrooms where there are elements that the customer wanted to display and make the most of. The first is a view to die for and the second is a back wall of beautiful tiles. Using textured or etched glass would obscure both elements and detract from the overall beauty of the room.
Another distraction would be framework, but we’ll come to that later.
The Privacy Factor
Patterned or obscure glass like the ones pictured below, offer varying degrees of privacy for the person showering. Each glass type has its own aesthetic qualities which will impart some influence on the style of your room.
The above close-up images show how your choice of glass type can influence visibility and privacy, the image below shows one of those glass types (narrow-reeded glass) used in a semi-frameless screen.
It’s worth highlighting here how the matt black shower frame was chosen for this bathroom to match the mirror and the simple monochromatic look of the room.
Also, the customer chose to keep the tapware matt silver as they felt that having black throughout would have been overbearing.
This is personal taste and we will show samples of each variation to give you guidance.
To Frame or Not to Frame?
There are a number of reasons for choosing a frame for your shower, budget, and water retention are two but there is also the ability to introduce colour and finish to the overall styling of the room.
At Dial A Glass we have an excellent choice of frame styles including:
- Matt Silver
- Bright Silver
- Matt Black
- Matt Brass
- White
- Colour Matched
Let’s look at how frame and fixture colour and finish impact design. The following are images of screens with various frame finishes.
The above bathroom uses clear glass in a matt black frame. This again is a very monochrome bathroom design, this time the client has chosen black tapware and shower fixtures as well as key elements such as the wall to the bath and wash basin. The clear glass and minimal framework to the shower work well here as there is a lot of white space.
The images below are of coloured framework. You can see how the colour interacts with the style of the room and either stands out as a feature or blends in more. It’s fair to say that most showers with frames impact the room far more than a clear frameless shower, even though frameless screens have fixtures available in the same colour ranges, their influence is less.
Below are samples of fixtures for frameless screens, in brass, and silver (you have the same range of colours available as the frame styles).
Even though there fixture elements are small in comparison to a frame, you can still continue the theme of the bathroom, shown here with silver and black hardware.
Go Doorless
If you have the right room layout and water spray from the shower head is controlled, you may be able to opt for a simple single or double panel without the need for a door as the images below showcase in a variety of styles.
Go Door Only
If your shower area is suitable, you can install just a door as the image below demonstrates with this 10mm fluted glass door with matt black hinges.
If Space is Limited
Some bathroom layouts prevent the use of pivot doors due to a lack of swing room. In these instances, we will usually recommend a sliding door shower if a simple panel arrangement will not suffice.
Even with sliders you still have options with layout, frame, colour, and finish. The images below show corner and inline layouts with and without framework.
Get Creative with Custom Shapes
Using our hi-tech waterjet machinery we can shape panels to create some wonderful designs as you can see from the image below which follows the contours of the ceiling.
Wrapping Up
Selecting the right shower screen design for your bathroom doesn’t have to be a headache. Keep practicality, safety, and your personal style at the heart of your decision, and you won’t go far wrong.
If you would like our experience and expertise in this field or would simply like a competitive quote get in touch, we’d be delighted to assist you.
