Dividing Spaces

Last year my sister and her husband decided that they wanted to get married, but before this huge step they wanted to have their new home built and decorated two months before their wedding. Finding a construction contractor to do the enormous house they wanted wasn't as difficult as for her deciding on how the interior design of the house would look like. She wanted several rooms and areas but didn’t want to divide all of them with walls, so a friend of ours recommended to her to take a look at decorative glass wall panels.

Our friend mentioned us that most people are using these decorative glass wall panels as a new way to divide the different areas of their homes, and that they are a lot more affordable than splitting the rooms with the regular walls, and a lot less messy since you don’t have to get contractors working in your living room.

Before my sister looked up more about these decorative glass walls, she thought that they probably wouldn't be attractive enough to be placed in her house, but she was wrong. She fell in love right away with the interior designs of different houses that had these glass panels.

The variety of styles, colors, and even surface designs are unlimited, you really don’t know where to start from, and these even give you new ideas on how to redecorate your home to make it look more spacious than what it really is or it can also give you that modern and sophisticated look that you would want your home to have.

My sister was definitely glad that our friend told her about this decorative glass wall option; she was able to not only build her home exactly two months before her wedding but also was very pleased with the finished of the interior design and space distribution of her new home.  

My Entrance Door

A few years ago, a college professor told me a line that has since stayed with me: ‘’you never get a second chance to make a first impression’’. That single quote changed my way of thinking and general outline of the world right away. I started dressing better, speaking better, listening more, judging less. It was definitely a transformative experience. Once I purchased my first home, I made sure to implement his lesson on my sacred temple.

I knew that the first impression version of my house would be the façade, so I made it a point to make it look as best as my budget would let me. I installed a picket fence and beautiful gardening on the front porch, it may have been Kentucky blue grass or a look-alike but I loved it. I figured the final step for the first impression project was the entrance door. I believe in symbolism and that doors act as a gate that transport me and my guests from the outside world into my own personal space. A space for relaxation, reflection and peace. I began browsing around in decoration magazines to see what door could best fit my wishes. Somewhere, in one of the dozens of magazines I looked at, I saw a wooden door with a beveled glass panel on each side. They were shaped like beautiful roses and had some color in them, I knew immediately that was the look I wanted for my house.

I always enjoyed walking through my beveled glass doors, and my initial safety concerns bearing around the glass being see-through quickly dissipated once I realized that just was not the case. The door provided safety and a lovely decoration option. Many of my friends (to my surprise) complimented me on how elegant the doors looked, something I realized until after the fact but now that they mentioned it, they did look very classy indeed. Yay me all the way!

Decorative Glass Wall Panels

Home decoration can be really tricky; believe me, for weeks I have been trying to decide on a new color for my living room.  We care a lot about this stuff because our home is that place that we take pride in. We want to create an attractive, cozy oasis for our visitors and specially ourselves. But sometimes I feel that is very hard to do. I don’t know if it is because of my lack of creativity or some other reason, but deciding on home decoration is something stressful for me.  The good thing is that nowadays we have countless options to choose from; and that helps us get a bigger perspective of what we might want. Recently, I was checking some cool decorative glass wall panel designs; and they definitely caught my attention.

My house is really small but I wanted to create like a study area where my living room is. The thing is that building a wall to divide the living room would imply a lot of money and time; and the house would end up looking even smaller and claustrophobic. While trying to find solutions for this matter I ended up thinking about decorative glass wall panels. The solution was right there.

Many people can quickly decide if they like or dislike a piece of art; however, in the case of decorative glass wall panels, options are countless and that gives you the perfect chance to make a decorative statement. Panels come in different colors and patterns, your panel doesn't have to be transparent; it can be opaque and mysterious, or bright and fun. You can choose something that best fits your style. There are also many benefits in having a decorative glass wall panel, for example, glass holds up well in moist environments and they are easy to move and replace.

I know I made the right choice by getting a glass wall panel. Instead of investing tons of money in remodeling, I divided my living room in an elegant and creative way.

So, when thinking about decorating your home, be sure to check out decorative glass wall panels. 

Why I chose decorative wall panels over wallpapers

In the 60s and 70s, wallpapers were a really trendy way of decorating your walls. They were an interesting alternative to paint. Many homes were decorated that way; commercials and home builders also used them as a nice way to boost the esthetic appeal of a house.

I never really liked them very much. They kept falling apart and getting stained so I told my dad at the time we should paint the house (which we did) and that interestingly enough became one of the iconic moments I remember about our relationship early on. We continued to share differences of opinions over interior design concepts but he always trusted my taste and I appreciate him for it. He was even more surprised however, when I recommended we remove the paint and install decorative wall panelsinstead! He has always told me I am ahead of my years when it comes to decoration. I think I just have a general notion of esthetic appeal; basically of what looks good and what doesn’t and in that regard I have rarely been wrong.

Our decorative wall panel was amazing. It was mostly wood but it had very nice carvings around the middle and incredible finishes on the edges. It gave our home an instant boost, it made it look a lot more elegant. We then added some paintings and nice furniture thus completing our home remodeling project. I think our home looked terrific, he definitely agreed since he basically funded the whole makeover. Dad always said that there comes a time in a man’s life where there is a great amount of pleasure in the little things such as decorating a house, things that he confesses were usually left for me and my mom to decide and execute. He now takes part in the decision making process and enjoys the follow through of our projects and I know for a fact he gets a kick of our guests’ looks when they see our décor.

Decorative glass panels are awesome

Glass is a very interesting material. Very much like iron, it can suffer physical transformations by heating it and acquire incredible shapes and colors. I was largely unaware of this until I made a trip to Germany; in one of the stores I visited, they had all kinds of scale size decorativeglass panels. They had mosaic, superheroes, flowers, religious figures and silhouettes; there was also one that looked exactly like President John F. Kennedy (I had read before my trip that he made a trip up there coining the phrase ‘’ich bin ein berliner’’.

Ever since I got back to my hometown, I have tried to incorporate that wonderful decorative concept into my house. What I did was basically contact local shops to see if they had those same kinds of products. 

Some said they had heard of them and some did not have them or weren’t aware of their existence for that matter; but one company did know about decorative glass panels and they told me they could make them shift shape to pretty much anything. I was very pleased with that answer and had them install about 5 panels on my living room. After that, the sun was reflected in such a different way, almost like the shaped and colored crystal was now a prism reflecting the magic of the sunlight. It’s really breathtaking to see those things.

My houseguests thought so, and I couldn’t have been more pleased with the outcome. It gave my home an instant esthetic pick-me-up and it wasn’t so costly to have them installed. I have actually recommended that same design concept to many friends who have given me compliments on my decorative glass panels. They really catch your eye. Next step for me was to have some lamps made of the same material and then some ornaments like ‘’Faberge’’ eggs, vases, and sculptures. I just hope an earthquake doesn’t happen soon for the sake of my décor.

My Tempered Glass Office Door

I have always been the kind of girl who is crazy about interior design. Just to illustrate, I probably have more blogs and stores’ newsletter subscriptions that I can count with both hands; so naturally, when the time came to choose specifics for my first office, I made several adjustments to what was ‘’pitched’’ to me by the remodeling crew. First, I went with a white couch, a long arm lamp, metallic structures for bookshelves, my desk and a few black & white New York City photographs on the walls. There is something about New York City’s skyline, its vibe is so contagious, every time I see it, it just gets me going.

Now, at last came the time to make a choice on the door! I have seen all kinds of doors, mostly on TV, from bamboo curtains, to thick wooden doors and a personal favorite, tempered glass. I went with tempered glass doors because I really like the way they looked, regular crystal somehow seems too fragile and I of course am a tough woman trying to stand out above the wolf pack! (I’m the only girl in a floor of 20) A stronger looking entrance to my space seemed to help with that image.

After a while waltzing through that door every day, I had come to love it so much that I decided to call a local company to have my own bathroom’s curtains replaced for  tempered glass shower doors. The material looked great even in my less luxurious apartment. There was something else that caught my attention about the tempered glass doors in my bathroom. Before I used to feel like the vapor from the showerhead just suffocated me and if I adjusted the knob it would just get very cold so I stuck it out. With curtains gone, I felt that that vapor somehow escaped faster making my every morning ritual feel less like a sauna visit and much more like a refreshing shower.

I have recommended tempered glass to a lot of friends, not only for their offices but also for tables, shelves, lamps etc. I guess that’s the type of things you start talking about after a while, along with perhaps brunch eateries, farmer’s market deals and pottery barn. It’s all part of the circle of life (ok now I’m being a little too deep). All kidding aside, they are a very esthetically appealing and a very affordable substitute to curtains and wooden doors. I remember the salesman at the firm telling me you could play around with your door design, for example, you could have something inscribed on your tempered glass doors like your name or something else. He was a good salesman, I reward people like him by referring new business casually.