5 Practical Design Tips for Your New Glass Shower Enclosure

A modern bathroom with wooden floor, white walls, contemporary shower enclosure, and glass frame shower.

A contemporary shower enclosure made of glass offers a sense of luxury and elegance to your bathroom. Custom glass work helps open the space, giving the illusion of more space and light in the room, supporting its spa-like nature.

As beautiful and modern as a glass frame shower door is, the glass design must be highly functional. The glass enclosure prevents numerous issues that could lead to water damage in your bathroom and helps minimize cleanup after your shower.

To ensure that your glass shower enclosure or tub surround is as functional as it is stunningly beautiful, we’re here to offer you five design ideas with practicality in mind while preserving its attractive and appealing nature, designer look and feel, and spa-like qualities we all want and deserve.

Keep scrolling to learn how you can make your shower design jaw-droppingly beautiful and highly functional.

5 practical and beautiful design tips for your contemporary shower enclosure

You don’t have to sacrifice beauty for functionality when you incorporate the following practical design tips:

1. Use glass tiles cautiously — Glass design tiles are a beautiful way to add color, texture, and interest to your bathroom. They are a unique and elegant style that offers homeowners a way to incorporate their personal style and aesthetic.

While these tiles are stunning, they can be tricky in some cases when it comes to drilling and securing your glass shower doors.

Glass tiles are best used as accent pieces since your shower enclosure requires drilling into said tiles. If you have glass tiles or want to use them in your design, it’s best to avoid placing them where your shower door hinges need to be attached. Glass tile could crack or break when it is drilled into.

2. Install your glass doors and panels on a curb — Many homeowners like the look of the glass frame shower doors and walls installed right to the floor. If you need an handicap-accessible shower, this approach is certainly the way to go.

However, if you don’t need it to be handicap-accessible, installing your custom shower enclosure on a curb is much safer and more practical.

Mounting your shower panels and door on a curb will help prevent water from spilling out onto the floor of your bathroom. Curbs done right slope slightly inward, towards the shower pan, so that the water will flow down towards the drain in the floor.

Solid, smooth sections of tile, marble, or granite are perfect options for shower enclosures curbs. Avoiding grouted tile on your curb is best, since water often collects in grout lines, which lead to unhealthy mildew and mold issues and creates unsightly maintenance concerns.

A contemporary bathroom with a walk-in shower, toilet, and glass frame shower.

3. Never install a shower head or body spray at the shower door opening — If you’re looking for the full spa-like experience in your shower, no bathroom retreat is complete without body jet sprays.

Body jets, also referred to as body sprays, for your shower are jets installed in the shower walls to give a full-body massage experience. These innovative fixtures are incorporated into your shower system to enhance your overall showering experience. You can position them to cover the entire body or certain parts that are particularly sore (shoulders, neck, back, etc.)

While these luxurious fixtures ensure your shower is the best it can be, their initial placement when it comes time to install them is crucial for their functionality. Shower jets should always be directed toward a tiled wall or fixed panel; never should the body jets point at the shower door opening.
The same goes for your shower head. Proper placement of your jets and shower head means a lesser chance of leaks and accidental spills (rather forced sprays) and floods out your shower door and less of a mess to clean up. Consider installing a rainfall-style fixture for even more control of where your water goes.

4. Install a transom for tall steam showers — Proper ventilation is a key part of a steam shower’s design. If an exhaust fan is out of the question, a transom window is an effective solution to enhance and ensure air circulation.
A transom panel featuring pivot hinges (that makes it “operable” for ventilation when not sealing in steam) will ensure an optimal steam shower experience.

5. Use textured glass for your shower enclosure — While crystal clear glass doors and walls make your contemporary shower enclosure look great, they are quite difficult to keep looking clean if you have hard water.

The reality is if you’re dedicated to keeping hard water stains at bay or they don’t bother you, more power to you! But if you want to minimize the work and disgust the look of these spots, textured glass is a great way to go.

Textured or frosted glass is much easier to maintain than standard glass since most water spots, stains, and streaks will not be as visible. Moreover, this type of glass offers showerers more privacy, a feature many homeowners prefer.

When installing, your glass professional will install the patterned glass facing outwards, placing the smooth surface facing the inside of your shower. This makes cleanup simple with a squeegee.

A modern bathroom featuring a contemporary shower enclosure, glass frame shower, and sleek sink.

Get a practical yet beautiful contemporary shower enclosure with New Concepts Glass Design

When you get your contemporary shower enclosure from New Concepts Glass Design, you never have to sacrifice beauty for functionality.

We are the go-to glass expert in Northern Utah and are here to help you install the glass frame shower of your dreams, regardless of the style you choose. Our skilled team has more than 30 years experience in the industry and wants to help you complete all of your residential or commercial glass projects. 

Whether you want textured glass fronts in your kitchen upper cupboards, glass handrails throughout on your balcony, glass walls at your business, or European shower doors in your bathroom, our talented team is here for you! 

Even if your vision isn’t 100% set, we are here to offer help. Our team is here to brainstorm ideas with you, weigh the good and the bad, look at functionality without losing out on beauty, and explore each of your options to ensure you get exactly what you hoped for. 

Our trusted and talented team is dedicated to every one of our clients and is committed to working with every single one of them to ensure their dreams come to life.

At New Concepts, we are dedicated to providing our customers with high-quality customer service and products. We work hard for our reputation and are Northern Utah’s leading glass company for a reason (seriously, take a look at our reviews from past clients).

Contact New Concepts Glass Design today for your free estimate on custom glass projects in Salt Lake City, Murray, Park City, and many other surrounding areas.

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