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Transform Your Home with QUBIGLASS®

If you’re like most 21st century adults in their formative working years- there’s a high chance you’re an independent contractor who relies on others to maintain your unique business. For an older generation, this flexibility and unstructured work schedule may appear risky or unstable, yet for the younger generation whose lifestyle relies on having a flexible work life, being an independent contractor and teaching classes makes total sense. However, during the coronavirus pandemic, having a fluid job like a yoga instructor (which relies on community involvement) has proven to be difficult- even with all of our modern technology and video conferencing! And though many attempted to teach classes from a virtual platform, there were a lot of technical and awkward difficulties that came along with it. After all, online painting workshops, Skype therapy, or tutoring, all quickly become impersonal and awkward over a virtual screen. These activities and lessons are unquestionably better in person. So what can you do about it?

Tips for instructors, self-starters, and creatives working from home

Whether you teach yoga classes or painting workshops, writing, or tutoring, there is finally a spatial solution available to implement in your home or studio so that you can get back to teaching in-person while still feeling safe and risk-free! QUBIGLASS® walls are the ultimate physical barrier between you and your clients! Perfect for these turbulent times of uncertainty, QUBIGLASS® wall partitions can be installed freestanding in any space, as this new system uses large sliding glass dividers that allow you to wrap an existing wall with glass walls in an open floor plan. Wrap around existing wall partitions in your home or studio to enhance the cleanliness and safety between two distinct spaces without paying the high cost of outfitting an entire space with new construction just to teach classes! Compared with Plexiglass or other synthetic glass alternatives, QUBIGLASS® is 100 percent real glass and can withstand constant cleaning and disinfecting with harsh chemicals. Over time, acrylic glass substitutes will fade, yellow, become scratched, and cloudy, while glass will remain clear and scratch-free for years to come!

Why glass?

Glass is the preferred choice for medical facilities, educational institutions, and working professionals due to its modern aesthetic, cleanliness, and longevity. Sturdy, non-porous materials like glass are exceptionally easy to wipe down and disinfect without compromising longevity.

QUBIGLASS® is a new glass partition developed by The Sliding Door Company, and is exceptionally well-made, durable, and built to withstand the test of time. These glass wall partitions are offered in a vast array of different sizes, configurations, and opacities. They can be ordered to suit your specific needs however big or small and are installed by a team of professionals within less than a day! That means no serious construction or disruption to your busy schedule or home life! These glass wall partitions were designed to work for commercial or residential spaces and are very easy to set up and deconstruct. During a time when we don’t know what the next week, month, or even year will bring, flexibility is super important!

Help cap airborne contamination between you and your students/clients with the most reliable physical barriers available! You can order your own QUBIGLASS® Partitions online at The Sliding Door Company. Schedule a free consultation with one of our team members and learn how you can update your space with the glass wall dividers your unique business needs to thrive!

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What to Do When You Have Too Much Space

You just moved into your vast and beautiful new house or apartment. The stunning amount of square footage and enormous windows were a selling point for you and your partner. You couldn’t wait to arrive at your new pad, after having just come from a significantly smaller place that felt cramped and limited. However, after having moved all of your belongings and furnishings in, you’re starting to realize you may just have too much space. After all, you don’t have large and vast quantities of furniture to begin to fill this new home. Not wanting to spend thousands on a new living room set, you start to wonder what one does when met with too large a floorplan.

Most would think this is typically not a bad complaint to have when describing a home. However, having too much space can make any home feel cold, not cozy, dark and lonely even. Luckily, there are some inexpensive and very effective solutions for crafting the cozy home of your dreams. Below are just a few tips you can use, items to integrate, and solutions to install to your new space.

Arranging the Furniture

This is a super important facet of laying out any interior space. How the furniture is arranged greatly affects the flow and function of a living room. If the furniture is too close to the walls, and far apart from other surrounding pieces, it will undeniably open up your space and create spacial distinction. As this is sometimes the goal for those living in tight quarters, it doesn’t work in your case. We want to pull the furniture in close to each other and create a cozy and somewhat intimate lounge where people can gather, share a coffee or watch a show together.

Being too spread apart will create unnecessary distance and give the impression of separation and solitude. Something to consider is arranging the furniture around a focal point. This could be an entertainment center, a big window with a view, or even an attention-grabbing coffee table or painting. This will act to give the surrounding furniture purpose and place.

Area Rugs

Area rugs are fantastic at warming up space, especially if you have cold wood floors and a sweeping floorplan. A rug draws together surround furniture, gives the pieces a framework to stay in and offers comfort to a shared space intended to feel cozy. Choose the color and pattern of your rug depending on how you want the energy of the room to feel. Warmer tones and vibrant patterns to create an uplifting, energetic vibe, and darker or cooler tones and colors to employ sophistication and elegance to your living room.

Greenery

To tie your space together, and make it feel more homely and intimate, make use of house plants and succulents to bring in novel life, purify the air and create intrigue. Bring the outdoors in with Fig Plants, Crotons, Lemon Lime Dracaena, Anthurium, Golden Pothos, and Snake Plants are all beautiful houseplants that do well with indirect sunlight. Consider replacing nearby closet doors with sliding mirror closet doors to spread ample sunlight during the day. Your plants will love the extra light, and it will simultaneously brighten up your space making it feel warmer and inviting.

Room Dividers

Employing room dividers to effectively break up vast floor plans is an effective, quick and painless way to transform any living room or shared space. For example, frosted glass wall partitions are great at creating a bit of spatial distinction and making a space more private, intimate and snug. Even sliding wall doors can help to separate the vast space and give you more options. With a variety of frame finishes, available accessories, and glass opacities to choose from, you can customize the partition or wall divider to suit your unique space! Plus, installation is simple and requires no serious construction to disrupt your lives and cost you money. Room dividers doors and walls offer flexibility and ease, as you can always remove and update them. By installing dividers,it becomes your choice. Slide them open, or close them for privacy in seconds. It’s getting the best of both worlds.

Cozy Accessories

Last but not least, make use of tasteful accessories. Bring your space to life with thoughtful touches such as worldly textiles, intriguing art pieces, interesting books and magazines to sift through, throw blanks and colorful knick-knacks. Things like wall sconces, candles, and intriguing vases are all fantastic additions that will add color, texture, and punch to a room. Not only do these accessories complete and tie together your design concept, but these little flourishes will brighten up your space and pull attention away from the expansive size, and towards the interesting details. This will craft a living room that appears smaller, more intimate and will provide a sanctuary for you and your partner (or family) for years to come.

With these effective solutions, tips and tricks, you’ll have a cozy new place in no time. The Sliding Door Company has all the creative solutions you need moving forward making your home as comfortable and stylish as possible. Don’t hesitate to check out our website, which offers a myriad of design examples, photos, accessory options, and customizable choices. Get in touch with one of our knowledgeable representatives by scheduling a free consultation and start the transformation 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.