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Are Bi-fold Doors Worth It?

Glass doors continue to be a highly sought-after product across the US housing market and interior design trends. If you are planning a renovation, you might want to consider a modern glass bi-fold door. Bi-fold doors are, in many settings, functional and practical solutions to unique settings in your home. You may consider a bi-fold door because of the following reasons.

Bathroom space with bi fold doors
Left Pull Bi-fold Door

Space-Saving Bi-fold Doors 

In a small footprint or tight location, a bi-fold door can be created to open and close inward or outward to be more convenient in your space. The Sliding Door Company offers left pull, right pull, and even double pull bi-fold door options. This style frees up floor space where it’s needed most—in cramped bedrooms, narrow hallways, small laundry rooms, and tiny pantries and linen closets. Additionally, you can easily move large furniture through and have more space on the sides of the door opening. Even in very small openings, a bi-fold door may be a better choice for your needs than a traditional door. 

Are Bi-fold Doors Expensive?

Bi-fold doors are quick and painless to configure and install. Depending on all the specifications, there are situations in which this solution can be more budget-friendly than alternative options. Bi-fold doors are more current and popular than old-fashioned pocket doors and accordion doors. Especially with our timeless glass and sleek frames, you can find the best cost-effective bi-fold doors for your home.

Double pull bi-fold door
Double Pull Bi-fold Door

Privacy with Bi-fold Doors

Fully flush to the wall in which the panel is created, when closed, the bi-fold door keeps a separation between the rooms it divides. Choose from a wide range of glass opacities to find the right mix of maximizing natural light while creating your desired level of privacy. Folding the door back opens up your space. 

Where to install a Bi-fold Door?

Bi-fold doors are a smart choice for your:

  • Bedroom closets
  • Coat closets
  • Laundry closets
  • Children’s playrooms
  • Linen closets
  • Home offices
  • Kitchen pantries
  • Wine storage
  • Narrow hallways
  • Unconventional layouts
  • Tiny homes

Bi-fold Door Types

Our high-quality Bi-fold System offers a stunning, brilliant solution to any workspace, home or children’s playroom. Since it allows the doors to fold towards the edge of the frame, this optimizes the space and is suitable for narrow closets or ‘phone booth’ type applications as well as larger spaces to allow access through almost the entire width of the opening.

In addition, our bi-fold doors are safe for your fingers! Our unique anti-finger pinch system sets this Bi-fold System apart from any other in the industry. Reach out to learn more about all our options! 

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BiFold Doors are a Space Optimizing Must-Have

Whether you’re a homeowner looking to optimize your interiors, or a designer/architect looking to craft the most user-friendly dwelling for your clients, a must-have staple of any home are space-saving view-enhancing bi-fold doors. These sliding doors are a fantastic hybrid of sliding doors with an added element of European flourish. Combined with traditional “French doors” or “patio doors” these bi-folding doors meld both designs into one. The result? A beautiful aesthetic and seamless design allowing for flexibility and ease of use.

Also known as “Concertina doors”, these chic and modern bi fold glass doors fold back on themselves in an accordion-like manner, optimizing space and adding intrigue and innovation to any spatial barrier. Being the creative design they are, these sliding doors date back to as early as the 1st century AD and were excavated amongst the remains of Pompeii. People of the past had engineered bi-folding doors almost exactly like how we see them now. Although they exclusively used wood rather than glass, this door design has stood the test of time. Below are some of the best ways to integrate bi-folding doors into your home.

Closets

If you’re like most people, you don’t have a tidy closet. Most likely, there’s a whole lot of junk and unorganized chaos lying behind those ominous closet doors. This hectic corner of your room (and life) deserves a fair bit of visual obstruction. While front opening closet doors seem to be the norm, why not install glass bi-fold closet doors to effectively optimize precious space and employ a bit of creative design in the process? With our innovative anti-finger pinch system, you won’t ever have to worry again about you or your child crushing a finger. Safe, sturdy and aesthetically pleasing, these bi-fold doors are the perfect closet upgrade you need.

Kitchen Pantries

Most often used for kitchen pantries, these sliding panel doors offer an easy space-saving solution perfect for small spaces such as food pantries and kitchen cabinets. Because they stack into panels, you don’t need to worry about cumbersome doors opening up into your kitchen space and taking up valuable room. Especially during heavy foot traffic experienced when cooking for large dinner parties or holiday meals, there is simply no room for normal front opening pantry doors. This is a must-have solution for the kitchen.

Laundry Rooms

Much like a bathroom or kitchen, laundry rooms are another territory of the house that are almost always designed without enough space. Tucked into some unassuming corner of the home, the laundry room is typically overflowing with clothing, extra items, cleaning products, and sports equipment. The last thing you want is to let this smorgasbord become visible to the rest of the house. Not only unsightly, but laundry rooms need some healthy spatial separation that will offer sound reduction and smell containment. Bi-fold glass doors work exceptionally well to offer the necessary barriers while appearing modern and visually appealing. Offered in an array of varying glass opacities, these folding doors are the solution for every home.

Living Rooms

Bring the outside in, with vast and sweeping bi-fold glass doors that allow for entire walls to be a visual opening to the other rooms in the house. Because we are creatures of comfort and we value our cozy spaces, we enjoy having the option to turn big sweeping floorplans into smaller, more snug nooks. We tend to feel safer and more enveloped in a smaller space. Interior bi-fold doors accomplish just that. Perfect for parties and entertaining, these doors craft a breezy solution for opening or closing interior rooms. Effortlessly expand or contract your interiors, and make the most out of your home.

With these simple yet effective considerations and upgrades to your home, you’ll be on your way to dominating your interiors. For more space optimizing solutions and inspiration, visit The Sliding Door Company to browse our online viewing catalog and Get A Free Quote from one of our team members to start your upgrade today!

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Spring Cleaning and Clearing

Spring is just around the corner, and what better way to welcome in the change of the season than to start thinking about some healthy Spring Cleaning! This type of spatial clearing is a great way to rejuvenate the energy of your interiors, physically polish your spaces, reduce your unwanted and burdensome clothing and material items and set your home up for summer. This can tend to feel like a big scary project, one that you can’t see yourself undertaking this season. It doesn’t have to be so cumbersome, and that’s why we’ve crafted a few helpful tips straight from the experts in space optimization to guide you through your Spring Cleaning transformation.

1.Have You Seen My…?

The first task on your list is to clear. Tackle your living room, bedrooms, and especially your closets. Identify what items you want to keep, and then those that you think you can safely let go of. A good trick is to take everything out of your closets, lay it out on the floor, and then go through each piece of clothing, your shoes and stowed away items and ask yourself if you seriously need it. Marie Kondo famously refers to this as “what items spark joy?”. If you can’t live without it, put it in the “keep” pile. On the other hand, if you find yourself realizing that you haven’t worn or used the item in a year or so, it’s probably time to let it go. Put it in the “give away” pile. Your “give” pile should consist of different categories, such as:

  • Recycling
  • Goodwill/Salvation Army
  • For Friends
  • Garage Sale
  • Landfill

After you’ve successfully categorized your items, move the “give” items into the garage where they won’t continue to clutter your space. Make a note to spend an afternoon dropping all of these items off at their different locations. This first task on your five-step list has just effectively cleared up a lot of space in your home to be able to reorganize the remaining items, clean and rejoice in your fresh space.

2. Hand Me The Broom!

The second chore is, you guessed it… to clean! For this next task, you’ll want to thoroughly check your cleaning supplies arsenal and pick up anything from the store you may need before diving headfirst into the mayhem. You don’t want to begin your cleaning extravaganza and realize that you need more sponges, bleach cleaner or Swiffer wipes.

What you’ll need:

  • Vacuum
  • Sponges
  • Rubber gloves
  • Windex/glass cleaner
  • All-purpose cleaner
  • Tile bleach/cleaner
  • Wood polish
  • Swiffers wipes
  • Dusters
  • Broom

Once you have everything you need, start to systematically move through each room in the house until it’s all done. Some key places and things you’ll want to scrub and freshen include:

windows, carpets/rugs, doormats, the kitchen, microwave, stovetop, silverware tray, “junk drawer”, hard-to-reach corners, desks, doorknobs, bathroom mirrors, sinks, under beds, to name a few. 

We suggest putting on some fun music and taking necessary snack breaks to make the process more enjoyable. It’s more of a marathon than a race, better to lean into the experience than away from it.

3. Now, We Organize.

Now that you’ve scrubbed, scraped and deep-cleaned every possible nook and cranny in your house, the time has come to organize. Because you already did the preliminary clearing of unwanted items, you just need to creatively organize what’s left. Sometimes, its easier to organize when you have some novel inspiration to get the process started. A good way to transform your closets, for example, is to replace your drab closet doors with fresh milky glass closet doors. Mirrored doors enhance and amplify natural light throughout the room, while also serving a wonderful dual purpose- disguising the unsightly mix of clothing and personal belongings while providing floor length mirrors for you to enjoy. Our decorative closet doors come available in a variety of glass opacities- from mirrored, to translucent or more opaque. Choose from accessory options and panel configurations to customize your sliding doors specifically for your home.

Now that you have a fresh take on your closets, you can carry on organizing the rest of the closet. Fold and hang up clothing, make sure that your most used items are within easy reach and accessible, and most importantly- don’t leave clothing haphazardly cast to the closet floor.

After you finish organizing your closets, move to the remaining rooms in the house.

4. Laundry – the Beast of Burden.

A space often widely overlooked in any home is thelaundry room. This space typically doubles as a toolbox, a larger than life clothing hamper, and a place to toss anything in the spur of the moment that you want to be hidden from visibility- especially right before your guests arrive for that dinner party or book club meeting. Laundry rooms end up being the full-sized embodiment of the “junk drawer”. AKA your worst nightmare. Not to fret! With a few simple solutions, your laundry room will be a fresh scented organizational masterpiece!

What you’ll need:

  • Shelving (lots of it)
  • A large clothing hamper
  • Baskets to organize and place clean laundry
  • A set place for soaps, detergents and cleaning products
  • A garbage bin (for lint and other trash)
  • Took rack (if you don’t already have one in the garage)

Our suggestion? Take your laundry room to the next level with bi-folding doors that hide your washer and dryer machines to add a bit of noise reduction and visible distinction making the space appear less cluttered and more artful. These bi-fold doors are a space saver with their concertina design, folding the doors in on themselves giving you much-needed space amongst tight quarters.

5. Enjoy Your Well-Earned Oasis

By clearing, cleaning, organizing and installing some spatial solutions, you’ve just set yourself up for a stress-free spring. Enjoy the novelty of fresh air, no dust or dirt, optimal organization and an overall lack of material items inundating your interiors. All it took was a bit of planning, some elbow grease, a “bite the bullet” mentality- and you’ve arrived at your well-earned oasis.

For more space optimizing solutions and inspiration, visit The Sliding Door Company to browse our online viewing catalog and Get A Free Quote from one of our team members to start your rental upgrade today!

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Providing Quality Service for Your Clients While Working With Limitations

Being contracted for a multitude of home improvement projects is never a walk in the park. These remodel and reconstruction endeavors take time, energy, organization, research, and perhaps the most difficult aspect – working within tight limitations set by the client. For every job you get contracted for, there is a myriad of inhibitors, deadlines, and hoops to jump through. The client puts forth tight parameters such as time and budget that keep you and your team on your toes. You attempt to have all the wants and needs of your client and the home itself flowing in a harmonious current, catering to any and all requirements evenly.

How to work within your client’s limitations without compromising the quality of your work becomes a constant theme of any home improvement project.

There are three main limitations typically facing a contractor and his/her team when setting out to complete a home project from start to finish. Below, we’ve outlined some life-saving solutions to keep your clients happy, and your business thriving.

On A Time Crunch

Typically, when a homeowner comes to you with a proposal for a renovation, ADU, or remodel, they want it done, and they want it done asap. Rare is the homeowner who can afford to spend the necessary time needed to complete a home improvement project realistically. Patience is out the door after the first few weeks, and you anticipate the string of phone calls, questions, and pressure put on you and your team. Most homeowners, if naive to the business, are just relatively unaware of the realistic amount of time and man-hours required to do a quality job while working within many parameters. Your clients fear the obvious disruption to their lives, such as cooking meals from a camping stove and showering at neighbors’ homes for weeks or even months on end. They consider benchmarks such as holidays, graduation parties and birthdays that need to be worked around. And more than anything- they just simply don’t want to wait. They’re excited and ready to be living in and enjoying their new home.

These expectations can pose a detrimental threat to the quality and integrity of your process. Other factors that affect the timeline can be as unavoidable as foul weather, lag time on ordered materials, the surfacing of hidden problems, and zoning difficulties. Luckily, there are a few things that can help hasten the speed of a project even when everything else is slowing you and your workers down.

When providing full-blown home renovations to large scale rooms such as living rooms, master bedrooms, and dining areas, there is a lot of time spent developing a floor plan that works with the layout of the house and with the client’s needs. Wall construction and framing is such a crucial yet monotonous task, which leads to a lot of time, negotiation, planning, and headache when deciding the framework design and build for each space. Perhaps it doesn’t have to be so difficult… Consider integrating space optimizing solutions into these integral spaces rather than spending valuable time, energy and cost in subjugating rooms that inherently don’t need to be fully separated. Making use of beautiful sliding glass doors, glass wall partitions and entire Glass Room Dividers can quickly and effectively craft spatial distinction between various rooms throughout the home without compromising potential flexibility. Your clients will be surprised not only at how stylish and modern a look it adds to any room but also how helpful the use of customizable glass partitions can be in a home. Saving them money in materials, and construction time. This is a sure way to save time and unnecessary stress during any renovation.

With Style And Innovation In Mind

The typical homeowner expects you and your company to provide quality service, while also crafting style and distinctive design throughout their unique home. While a large concern for you is structural integrity, materials, and technique, it’s, of course, necessary to consider the overall aesthetic of the home. Not to mention special features or useful functions that add value and intrigue to the house. Providing helpful technologies throughout the interiors to make everyday life easier for the homeowner is a great addition. Things like remote-control light switches, smart faucets, glass doors and glass walls that allow natural light in, wireless speakers, solar-powered path lights all increase the value and show that your company cares about a more sustainable way of building, and living. By providing helpful additions, you help conserve resources and save your clients water and energy costs with these innovative technologies. By thinking ahead, you can introduce green gadgets and solutions that will undoubtedly reduce the homeowner’s overall carbon footprint and provide them a home to feel proud of, all while working style and taste into the green design.

On A Budget

Work with what already exists. During the remodeling process, aim to repurpose and upcycle anything you can so as to save on materials and utilize perfectly useful and charming pieces and home features. You want to make sure you can pair existing features and structural elements that work, with upgrades and novelty to retain its inherent charm all while at an agreeable cost. Introducing useful features such as sliding glass barn doors to separate rooms is an instant win-win. Not only do you provide flexibility, but it’s a cost-effective solution to partitioning two rooms that don’t need or desire full separation. Much smarter and economical than building out two entirely distinct rooms that would inevitably require doors, trim, electrical and additional framework. Glass barn doors are a wonderfully rustic point of interest that will excite your clients and save you time and slash costs for the homeowner.

Another bonus of having interior glass room dividers, closet doors, or laundry enclosures installed in the home will add ever-lasting value to the current and any future owners, including virtually maintenance-free care.

Furthermore, consider keeping but renewing unique structural elements that your team can upgrade with new drywall, a fresh coat of paint or small additions to the existing features. This will save a lot of money in building materials and labor in the long-run.

With the previous limitations posing potentially compromising threats to the success and timeline of your projects, there was understandably a lot to stress over. Now that you have a few helpful tips guiding your next project, big or small, it is sure to be a happy success. To get inspiration and see some space optimizing solutions, visit our photo gallery. Contact us at The Sliding Door Company to get in touch with one of our team members for a free consultation.

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Live Your Best Life with Four Interior (And Life) Solutions

Children, roommates, and spouses are the light of our lives until they become the opposite- a daunting distraction hindering personal growth, tasks, and our much needed “alone time”. We tend to feel bad about needing personal space, quiet, healthy solitude. Let’s rewrite that narrative, and move forward with a more forthright declaration. This year is about setting boundaries and acknowledging it! You are your environment, and your environment is you. It is okay to yearn for ownership of your spaces. To be able to employ separation is a great gift to yourself, and The Sliding Door Company recognizes just that. We provide a multitude of options and specializations to suit your unique needs. Here are four solutions to waltzing into living your best life in style and inner harmony.

1. Identify and Craft the Perfect Environment

The New Year is about growth, about evolution, and about outlining your needs and owning them. One of those needs is taking ownership of your environment. Dwellings, interior spaces, shared rooms. The how and why you exist in them. This year, take it upon yourself to observe the spaces in your home you subconsciously exist in most- whether it be the bedroom, the kitchen, the living room, or the study. Now, after identifying which interior space feels the best to you, try to decipher why it is you find yourself gravitating towards that particular space. Is it safe, is it cozy, peaceful, productive, or is it full of life, exciting, loud and energetic? Is the lighting superior to all other rooms? Whatever it may be, you instinctively know where you are being drawn to. Now, wouldn’t it be fantastic to feel that way about every single room in your home? Well, it could. There is a smart solution to incorporating the qualities of the spaces you enjoy the most throughout the entire house without sacrificing the feeling of communal living, or the opposite- your personal space.

2. Set Boundaries

Our solution? Set boundaries and invest in your environment by physically partitioning your environment with sliding doors and entire sliding walls. One particular space optimizer we offer stylish, customizable sliding glass barn doors to create interest and option to virtually any space in your home. This modern take on a rustic staple will act as a barrier between two rooms that don’t want the commitment of separation, yet could use a healthy dose of spacial distinction from time to time. If it’s the living room you love, yet you find yourself discouraged to enjoy the comforts of that space due to the constant foot traffic, sounds, and smells of the nearby kitchen, the remedy for that is to create duality and harmony between the two. The sliding doors optimize the usability and comfort of your interior spaces while allowing for internal peace- when not everyone in your life is on the same page. Buttery smooth to slide open and close, and allowing for beautiful light to pass through, these doors are a no-brainer that will increase the functionality in your life ten-fold. This solution offers adaptability, so you don’t have to. No more arguments about your shared environment, turning the fan on or off, or battles over lighting or temperature. Breathe, relax and enjoy. This year could be as blissful as that post-yoga zen.

3. Accomplish Your Goals

Now that you have the option to enjoy your favorite space without fear of interruption or discomfort, you can undoubtedly accomplish your goals in any room of the house. Whether it’s your morning stretch routine, coffee and catching up on social media, planning your next trip, chipping away on demanding computer work, or just finishing that novel you’ve been staring at for weeks… the choice is yours. Free from interruption, and into the present moment. No need to feel guilty, that’s not what 2020 is all about. What it is about, is moving forward in your life, unobstructed from unnecessary distractions. The separation of space is so much more valuable than we tend to recognize. With sliding glass doors segregating your interiors, you can cast your disturbances to the side and delve into your current project, routine, or ritual. The Sliding Door Company offers this space improvement solution in many different variations. If the barn door aesthetic isn’t one you can see working in your home, there are a myriad of other options for obtaining the same objective. We provide entire sliding room dividers that act as a wall, yet are easily maneuverable to open up entire rooms and provide the merging or closure of two spaces. Choose from different glass opacities, frame finishes, and accessories to craft the perfect environment for a productive year.

4. Invest In Yourself

Investing in ourselves can be a difficult thing to do. When the demands of life become too cumbersome for us to handle, what is the first thing to go? Our physical health, mental wellness and consequently, our inner buddha. Our personal spaces become cluttered and unkempt. When we feel stressed, we stop looking at ourselves in the mirror. We stop addressing and acknowledging the person we have become. As figuratively as that may sound, it applies to the literal, too. Looking at ourselves in a real, unobstructed mirror can at times be a challenge- especially when we’re not ready for it. Additionally, when we have smaller bedrooms or bathrooms we can’t justify installing large full body mirrors- just to get a better glimpse of ourselves before leaving the house. This year, let’s challenge that.

Our advice? Replace the drab closet doors with Closet Mirror Sliding Doors. Made specially in our factory with quality and purpose fabricated into every panel, our doors are the ultimate fresh look you need for not only your room but for yourself. Utilizing green materials and the awareness of safety with utmost importance, our glass closet doors will provide you with a clear mind and a simple space-saving solution sure to cater to inner peace. Don’t leave for work or for that date without seeing the entire picture. What is on the inside will translate better when your outward look is considered, respected and authentically you. A full-length mirror aids well the polished look to a grounded you. Our mirrored sliding doors come in your choice of lightweight but sturdy 5mm thick mirrored safety glass, and they come in the client’s choice of frame size, frame finish and even in a smoked mirror option for a warmer appearance. The Sliding Door Company’s sliding closet doors have the 3S Smart Shut System and our patented wheel to the track locking system. The doors themselves come in all sorts of sizes and variations- from hanging to grounding on a track. Offering six different framing finishes to choose from, we imply choice as a prominent aspect of our business – it is ultimately your life, and your choice.

Considering the above solutions, the framework for a new year has already been laid out. Slide into a new phase as you’ll enter into your new space – happier, healthier and free to live your best life.

To get started on your environment make-over, check out our products gallery for inspiration and product images. Schedule a free consultation with one of our knowledgeable professionals to get a quote and other information on our many available solutions. Simply find a showroom near you and get that much closer to your idyllic dream home!