Tag: sliding room dividers

Optimize Your Office Space with Interior Glass Doors and Partitions

Commercial

We know there are many options to increase the quality and productivity of your office workspace. Here we explore a few options and their benefits.

According to Jory MacKay, “few things affect our productivity as much as what we surround ourselves with. Yet most of us rarely take the time to step back and really analyze our working environment.”

We couldn’t agree more, and that is why we designed our interior glass door solutions to optimize your work area and uplift any occupants of the space. The options are endless, from single fixed panels and partitions, to rows of glass cubicles for coworking needs.

This private office space below includes our floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors, paired with a swing door, with designer handles and recessed bottom tracks. When the doors are open, it’s a free-flowing collaborative workspace. But when quiet and privacy are needed, the doors can be shut and locked accordingly.

Floor to celing glass panels with swing door

Clutter-free, Organized Workspaces Boost Productivity

The results of this study tell us that physical clutter in your surroundings competes for your attention, resulting in decreased performance and increased stress.

Similar to what multitasking does to your brain, physical clutter overloads your senses, making you feel stressed, and impairs your ability to think creatively. Set time aside each month to assess your workspace and ensure it is not too cluttered. This will lead to increased productivity and morale. Our modern cubicles are a great way to give employees room to work and also set boundaries.

Optimize Your Space & Allow Natural Light To Come In

Glass room dividers with combo glass (bottom half frosted, top half clear) provide a unique workspace allowing in a ton of natural light. Plus, our space-saving glass wall and aluminum frames are all recyclable and perfect for green construction projects.

Smaller “phone booth” workspace options give plenty of room for a team of 2 or 3 to create, collaborate and solve! The open-air design allows for the sharing of lighting, heating, and air conditioning, saving energy costs year over year.

Optimize Functionality

The many benefits of our interior workspace solutions:

Strategically optimizing of every square foot of your floor plan.
Lighting, air conditioning and heating can be shared, eliminating the need to move or re-do the HVAC system…saving tons of money.
Each work area can be re-purposed on the fly if needed as the business evolves. Talk about flexibility!
Offices with glass sliders or swing doors can be locked and even master-keyed to the storefront or building door.

We make our interior glass doors in our own factory where safety and quality are carefully fabricated into every single glass door.

The selection of glass types, frame color finishes and ADA-compliant accessories provide our clients with sustainable, functional and stylish options to suit their specific project needs.

Optimizing every fraction of your floor plan by creating spaces that can be re-purposed as technology changes and as the business grows is essential. Functional glass office dividers, storage enclosures, glass partitions and conference room dividers are our specialty.

Want help choosing the right office option for your space? Contact the friendly interior glass door experts at The Sliding Door Company, to learn more about our workspace solutions.

Why the Glass Office Is Here to Stay

Commercial

Conference room privacy glass room dividers

Every year, offices get smaller—by at least 30 percent—and, every day, they get more transparent. Sliding glass doors have replaced solid hunks of wood and metal. See-through partitions and glass walls now rise up where tiny cubicles once stood. Welcome to the glass office of the 21st century: small and sustainable, bright and beautiful.

The Space Challenge

Businesses today face a tough challenge: maximize space in an increasingly cramped world. As square footage gets scarcer and scarcer, finding extra legroom becomes more and more difficult. How do you downsize without giving your employees a bad case of claustrophobia?

For one, you can install sliding room dividers and doors. Not only do they make an office look and feel bigger; they also cut down on wasted space. Gone are those large “dead” zones in front of swing doors. Sliding glass doors open with an easy horizontal movement.

Replacing conventional office doors with glass allows designers and their clients to skirt common design challenges. It means they can place private workspaces and conference rooms in previously taboo places like hallways or other confined spaces that can’t accommodate the clearance zones needed for swinging doors. In an era when every square foot matters, that can make all the difference.

The Light Challenge

If space is scarce, then light is a precious commodity. Particularly in North America, where offices often cover a large plot of ground, it’s hard to get natural light into the deep nooks and crannies of a building. The only alternative is to install expensive lighting fixtures—and lots of them.

That’s a deal-breaker for many executives and entrepreneurs. Electric light (of any variety) is no substitute for natural light, which has been proven to elevate mood, promote health, and raise productivity.

Then there are energy costs to consider. It takes a lot of money to illuminate an otherwise dim office—unless you can find a way to bring sunlight into the deep, dark recesses of your office. The easiest way to do that is to replace solid, light-blocking walls with glass. With a simple change of materials, you get more light and less sticker shock.

The Privacy Challenge

As time goes on, more employers realize the benefits of glass. That has led to an explosion in the popularity of glass office walls and doors. Still, some have concerns. What about privacy? How about echoes?

Enter the privacy wall—a partition made of frosted or smoked glass. The best part is that each wall can be customized to meet particular needs. Some businesses choose fully frosted office partition walls. Others opt for a half-and-half arrangement.

Another popular strategy is to put a frosted strip across the center of glass room partitions. That way, employees get plenty of light and visibility, without the complete openness that comes with full transparency.

Half frosted glass partition wall divides meeting room space

Embracing the Glass Office

There are as many reasons to embrace a glass office as there are offices in the world. Every business has its own unique set of concerns—health, privacy, productivity, energy costs, sustainability, openness, collaboration.

The popularity of glass fixtures owes largely to the fact that they satisfy such a broad spectrum of needs. Only with glass can you balance privacy and openness, collaboration and individuality, aesthetics and economics. Only with glass can you economize on space while getting an expansive design—all of which is why the glass office is here to stay.

Home office space divided by two clear glass panels with glass swing door

Want to know how you can take your office space from humdrum to spectacular? Contact the friendly interior glass door experts at The Sliding Door Company, to learn more about our workspace solutions for the 21st century.

The Benefits of Glass Sliding Doors – Privacy and so much more

Various types of sliding glass doors, room dividers, and office partitions

A privacy wall or glass partition is a great substitution for standard drywall or typical fabric panels that can offer an upgraded modern look to any professional or residential space without compromising the privacy of occupants or workers. Privacy walls are available in a variety of designs and customizable—with an assortment of glass opacities to choose from to create privacy.

Types of Glass Opacities

While curtains, drapes, and blinds are the usual solutions for glass doors and windows, our glass opacities give you the privacy you want while maintaining a refined and contemporary aesthetic. We offer a diverse selection of glass opacities, which include:

Milky
Opaque Laminated
Frosted
Linen
Combo Glass
Clear
Smoked Clear
Smoked Frosted
Black
White Laminated
Deluxe White
Smoked Milky

What are glass privacy walls?

A privacy wall can be anything from a glass partition to glass sliding room dividers. Depending on your individual needs, you may need one or a combination of products to receive optimal results.

Glass Partition

Glass partitions, for example, are the perfect solution for common office buildings. Fabric cubicle panels typically leave workers isolated from their surroundings and limit the amount of natural light they get, which can result in lower productivity levels and despondency among workers.

Glass partitions with a specialized opaque finish allow workers to feel connected to their environment while still maintaining separation and privacy. In addition, regular exposure to natural light has been reported among scientists to increase individual productivity and comfort, as well as provide mental and visual stimulation necessary to regulate our sleep/wake cycle.

Fixed privacy wall for partitioning office employee workstations

Sliding Glass Doors and Room Dividers

Sliding glass doors and sliding room dividers with a combo glass or opaque finish are the ultimate solution for those who want the flexibility to create and adjust a customizable space.

For example, you can change the entire atmosphere of a conference room with sliding glass doors simply by opening or closing said doors. Completely closed doors allow the space to become a perfect spot for confidential meetings or can be left partially open to create a welcoming space for an office party or casual gathering.

Office row utilizing sliding room dividers with custom film

Benefits of Glass Privacy Walls

A glass privacy wall has a number of benefits, including:

Instantly gives spaces an upgraded and modern look with glass opacities.
Creates the illusion of an open floor plan, without compromising individual privacy or separation.
Offers flexibility to create and design a space for various circumstances.
Allows more natural light to move through the space, which can increase productivity and happiness among workers.
They are a cost-efficient solution that can lead to energy savings and decreased maintenance costs.

Customizable Glass Solutions

No matter what type of privacy wall you want The Sliding Door Company has the solution for every space — whether it is a residential building, classroom, office, or another professional facility. Call 888-988-5033 to request your free consultation or fill out our online form to get started today.

Changing Workplaces for the Better: The Effects of COVID-19

Employee sitting at work with a face mask in an office setting separated by glass partitions

If you’re a business owner you’re likely feeling both trepidation and urgency when it comes to re-opening your business in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. While it would be alarming to resume operations after a global pandemic, there is the looming cloud of further COVID-19 outbreaks on the horizon for you to contend with as well.

So, now that office life has changed due to COVID-19, how do you keep your workforce not only safe but productive? Thankfully safety and productivity can go hand in hand. A staff that feels secure is going to be able to focus and perform better than if they were worried about contracting a potentially deadly virus at work.

While these new workforce trends and the changes they entail may seem daunting, they will likely improve the overall quality of your workforce’s performance.

Traditional Workplaces Compared to During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Experts agree the traditional way of working before COVID-19 is over. Before COVID-19 working from home was generally either frowned upon or a unique privilege when allowed. But now, the future of the workplace includes more options to work remotely. Before COVID-19 workers would commute from home to the office building, where they would then share space with their co-workers. Many offices are comprised of open-air cubicles where airspace and germs were freely shared. Not only was the workspace shared, but bathrooms, kitchens, and break rooms were as well. While this model allows for better communication and collaboration, with the risks of the pandemic, some of these qualities need to change to keep people safe.

How to Elevate Alternative Workspaces

To prepare your employee workstations for a return to work after the first wave of the pandemic, there are three key ways to keep your employees safe.

The first way is very simple—provide hand sanitizer at each workstation. This will allow your employees to sanitize their hands regularly and is a main piece of any COVID-19 workplace guidelines.
The second way to support employee safety as people return to work is to create physical distance between employee workstations whenever possible. This may take some creativity and will tie into the third piece of many COVID-19 workplace guidelines, physical barriers.
The third way to protect your employees, especially when physical space isn’t an option, is to use physical dividers. This is a great example of how these new workforce trends can create improvements in the workforce. Having physical dividers between employee workstations can increase a sense of privacy and cut out distractions in the form of noise from other workers. The sense of separation may allow workers to focus better on their job, while also offering physical protection from not only the COVID-19 virus but other germs and bugs as well, such as the flu or common cold. Making these physical divisions as flexible and attractive as possible sets up both the business and the individual employee for success. Using products like the ones offered by The Sliding Door Company would allow an office to customize its design for both function and aesthetics.

Designate Physical Separation with Partitions or Sliding Dividers

Whether you want sliding pocket doors for your cubicles or glass barn doors to enclose a previously open conference room, The Sliding Door Company offers a variety of ethically sourced and quality-made spatial solutions for every business. From the thickness of glass to beautiful custom finishes including wood and metal framing, The Sliding Door Company can design a custom build to fit any office.

Here are a few examples of how The Sliding Door Company can work with specific businesses:

Dental offices and other healthcare businesses are at the front line of the pandemic, making their need for physical dividers between their employees and patients paramount. The Sliding Door Company’s glass door solutions allow privacy when needed for patient consultations, but also can open easily to maximize space and light.
Schools are also hotspots for COVID-19 but must also be able to provide space for learning and collaboration. The Sliding Door Company’s classroom solutions provide privacy and curb the spread of germs, while letting in light and their quality materials offer safety to the students and teachers.
Commercial retail spaces have borne the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic, second only to healthcare spaces. The Sliding Door Company’s glass wall systems help businesses save on energy costs and create the physical separation necessary to keep retail employees healthy and safe.

Cost Matters for New Divided Floor Plan

If the cost of creating a new divided floor plan has you worried, The Sliding Door Company is here to help. With their professional team of specialists, you can be confident that they’ll work with you to create a spatial division plan that works for your budget and your space. The Sliding Door Company prides itself on client communication so that they can make the project of your dreams become reality.

Part of how The Sliding Door Company can so confidently work within your budget while also offering materials of the highest quality is that they manufacture all their products in their own factory. This allows them to manage the quality of their products from production to installation, giving you peace of mind about the quality of this latest budget expenditure. Because they make their products with no middlemen involved, this allows them to pass savings onto their customers, while still providing products of the highest quality.

You can also rest assured knowing that The Sliding Door Company focuses on using recycled and environmentally friendly materials, which will likely mean a lot to your staff as well. Whatever your office space needs are in this era of COVID-19, The Sliding Door Company is here to help.

Interior Space Mastery How Colors Inform Emotions Within Our Home

Interior Design Trends

We’ve all experienced that moment walking into a home and becoming instantly transfixed, transported to another time and place and feeling. The colors on the walls, the textiles, the shapes of furniture inform our emotions, and cause us to feel a specific kind of way. That savory experience might have motivated some of us to seek out a similar experience in our own homes. Those experiences leave us wondering what exactly about that space had such a profound effect on our emotional state. Perhaps the mixture of all of the intimately considered design details when melded together, successfully elevated the space and brought us into a new state of being. So how does color inform emotion and what color palette can you choose to feel a specific way in your home?

Color Theory

Interior designers and artists across the globe have long asserted that color informs and influences human mood and emotion. The careful consideration of color within a space can have a profound effect on the psychological happenings of the inhabitant. From anxiety to depression, calmness to concentration, the color pallet can have a substantial impact on real human emotion. That’s why picking wall paint, furniture, and art while often overlooked, can literally change your life. People often admit to being turned off by a room if it doesn’t feel inviting. Not quite able to put their finger on the problem, many end up neglecting certain rooms in the house simply due to a bad color choice. That’s why we’re here to help inform your color decisions moving forward and hopefully ensure every room in the home is being used and loved by everyone.
“Color is a powerful communication tool and can be used to signal action, influence mood, and even influence physiological reactions. Certain colors have been associated with increased blood pressure, increased metabolism, and eyestrain.” -Kendra Cherry, VeryWellMind.com

The Basics: Warm vs. Cool

Warm tones include colors under the red category, such a red, orange, yellow, and some creams, and whites. These colors can cause us to feel an array of different emotions. Take the color red for example, which is considered the most extreme color of them all. Red can cause us to feel many different emotions, all of which are intense and moving. Anger, love, excitement, passion, power, and control are all possible emotional byproducts of red, depending on the shade, the context, and our own unique associative processing. Yet other colors under the warm category such as orange, yellow, and creams can influence us to feel comfort, love, security, happiness, excitement, and motivation.
Examining colors on the cool spectrum, such as blues, purples, greens, and whites, we can often experience a different side of emotions. Feeling calm, relaxed, soothed, and concentrated in cooler settings has been reported by many. Although research is relatively limited, many of us can relate to these findings. So, when planning your interiors, consider how you may want to feel within each space. For example, home offices should maybe have a cooler wall color like blue, green, or white to improve concentration and focus while remaining calm and relaxed.
Other Considerations

Lighting

Lighting feeds greatly into mood and emotion in interior spaces. Natural light, warm amber bulbs, and light-allowing glass will help to accentuate the space and elevate mood. Consider replacing normal walls with sliding glass walls and floor to ceiling sliding glass dividers to allow natural daytime light to flow through your interior spaces.

Pair thought-provoking art with your relative wall color to offer beautiful juxtapositions and influence your emotion in the space. If your wall color is simpler and paired-down, you’ll have more freedom to play with colorful pieces without running the risk of over-stimulation.

Furniture

Furnishings have an obvious effect on space, as does their color. The color pallet of the entire room needs to be considered and has to work harmoniously with the wall color, art, and textiles. Patterns and color can either elevate or distract. Make sure your furniture is
Keep these color considerations in mind when designing your interiors. When chasing that feeling of being transported to another time and place, color and light is key. Bring more light into your home with glass wall dividers and space-optimizing sliding glass doors, sliding closet doors, and sliding room dividers. For more inspiration and ideas on spatial solutions, don’t hesitate to check out the best offered at The Sliding Door Company. Visit Us Online to browse our online viewing catalog and Enjoy A Free Consultation from one of our team members to actualize your vision today!

TSDC 1020 – A

Coastal Living in Marina Del Rey

Interior Design Trends

Living in California is essentially a luxury unto itself. Living in Southern California, even better. Living in Marina Del Rey? An absolute dream. Great weather all year round, palm trees, a stunning harbor, fine dining, and shops scattered throughout a breezy coastal landscape. It comes as no surprise that real estate in Marina Del Rey is some of the most sought after in the world today. Getting the chance to build your own dream home in Marina Del Rey is an exciting, inspirational adventure. You should be intentionally designing your home to utilize all the best assets this area has to offer, including the sweet ocean breeze, stunning coastal views, plenty of sun exposure, and your proximity to the Pacific. Here are a few design considerations to keep close in mind while contracting your new home in Marina Del Rey.

Would You Look At That?

When you set out to design your dream Marina Del Rey home, take into account your innate access to a plethora of stunning views. Whether they be of the sparkling Pacific Ocean, the famous yacht harbor, or of the striking Los Angeles skyline, the views are essentially limitless. Once you define where you wish to direct your gaze for the foreseeable future, you can then start to think about how you can situate your home to emphasize that view. Making use of large-scale sliding glass doors that will forward you that beautiful view is a wonderful way to bring the outside in, so to speak. Additionally, think about other space optimizing solutions that will enhance and enable your visibility throughout the home and transmit the most natural light throughout your interiors. Let the ocean breeze sweep you up with floor to ceiling glass wall partitions and sliding glass room dividers for enhanced visibility of breathtaking views within your bedrooms, work-study, or family room. Do you use glass wall partitions and sliding room dividers or a breeze to install, will last a lifetime, and offer you the physical barrier of a wall without sacrificing your view maintaining a consistent aesthetic throughout your house is super important during the design process. If you decide to integrate glass wall dividers throughout your home, consider also installing sliding glass closet doors and sliding glass bathroom doors to match. To achieve a sleek modern interior theme, glass wall partitions will do the majority of the work for you!

Seaside Home Office

Regardless of how valuable having a home office is during this troubling pandemic, it’s always wise to design your home to include a full-size work-study. A place to collect your thoughts, work on personal projects, or to work from home while the necessity to work remotely continues for months on end. When designing your dream home office, think about how you can maximize your view to feel integrated to the outside while working away during the best daytime hours. Install glass office partitions rather than typical walls in order to enhance your view and visibility of the beautiful Marina Del Rey landscape.

Take Advantage of those Rays

Living in light-filled Southern California obviously offers many environmental benefits. One of the best perks about living in Marina Del Rey is your ability to install solar panels to power your home and situate yourself in the wonderful position to receive a generous ROI in the near future. Being able to sell your power back to PG&E is a huge financial relief and a large point of pride for many homeowners that switch to solar. Speak with your architect about your solar options, and inquire about other forms of renewable energy such as wind power. Being that you live in a breezy seaside town, you can effectively install rooftop windmills to generate even more electricity than solar alone. These technologies will undoubtedly save you money and earn you a few eco karma points in the process.

For more inspiration and space optimizing solutions, don’t hesitate to check out the best sliding glass barn doors, sliding closet doors, sliding room dividers, and spatial solutions offered at The Sliding Door Company. Visit Us Online to browse our online viewing catalog and Enjoy A Free Consultation from one of our team members to actualize your vision today!

TSDC 1008

Eco-Architecture Design Tips

Interior Design Trends

Design to Keep In Mind During Commercial and Residential Real Estate in Irvine

The architectural industry coming out of COVID-19 will undoubtedly never be the same. Regardless of the human impact the virus has had, this global phenomenon has in more ways than one become a mirror for humanity to collectively look at our daily routines, environmental impact, and carbon footprint on the whole. Our use of resources, our building practices, the foods we eat, the number of throwaway plastics we use every day, even our transportation. All of these considerations are now scrutinized under the environmental microscope of today’s global climate. This will ultimately alter the way in which we choose to build and design architecture, forever.

In a US state as environmentally aware as California, it has become common practice and necessity even, to go into a design process with utmost intention and regard for the environment. When initiating your architectural project in Irvine, California- be it residential or commercial- there are a few key considerations that must be taken into account before the heavy machinery arrives on site. We will examine these steps, including eco-design concepts such as directional positioning, alternative energy sources, and sustainable materials. Achieving an entirely off-the-grid structure is not exactly the first inclination for most architects and contractors. Yet if we wish to further develop our environmental awareness and contribution as a country then we need to be building innovative, environmentally intelligent structures that are not only built to last but also built to sustain.

Directional Positioning

In order to achieve a structure that is energy-efficient, cost-effective, and works with a natural environment, directional positioning is a necessity that needs to be taken into account. This refers to the positioning of the structure to effectively utilize and take advantage of wonderful natural daytime light brought in by large windows, that will provide not just visible light, but sustained temperature regulation throughout the building during all hours of the day. South Facing Windows in the northern hemisphere that face the sun obtain a maximum solar gain, while in the southern hemisphere, the windows should be designed to face the north in order to maximize solar gain. This intelligent design dramatically reduces heating and cooling costs, saving you money, and reducing the need for carbon-heavy HVAC systems. This concept is called Passive Solar Heating and Cooling, and it is widely adopted by architects and builders throughout the world today. To further your gains while designing with this concept, you can maximize light spread by installing glass wall partitions and sliding glass room dividers in order to transfer heat and light all the way through the house. Fantastic for home offices, frosted glass office walls, and glass office partition panels let in beautiful natural light, and create a warm, pleasant sanctuary perfect for concentrating and enjoying productive at-home workdays.

Alternative Energy Sources

When setting out to design your dream home or commercial building in Irvine, take note of the year-round great weather that affords you amazing eco upgrades that other states with less sunlight miss out on. Irvine is the ideal location for installing rooftop solar panels, as there is plenty of available daytime sunshine, and a wealth of wonderful solar companies to choose from. Switching to solar is not only an environmentally conscious decision, but a savvy financial move as well. Many don’t realize that when you install solar, you don’t just benefit from being off the grid and financially free from the heavy price of annual electricity, but you can also sell your energy back to the electric companies for them to use. Additionally, you can effectively generate your own home-made electricity using small-scale wind turbines. Installing a typical residential wind turbine system in an exposed site in a coastal city like Irvine can easily generate more power than your lights and electrical appliances use. Lastly, though this alternative energy source is very site-specific, you can use hydropower to generate enough electricity to power your home appliances and electronics. Your home or commercial building would need to be located within close proximity to a flower river, stream, or canal in order for this to work. However, the great thing about hydropower is that you don’t have to worry about rainy days or partial sunlight detracting from your ability to store energy, as compared with solar panels.

Sustainable Materials

Sustainable materials when ethically sourced, are the future of building. Materials such as hemp, bamboo, glass, repurposed wood and plastics, cork, recycled paper and fibers are all considered extremely sustainable, environmentally friendly materials. Using real glass for sliding room dividers or wall partitions rather than acrylic or plexiglass is a more sustainable option, as it is longer lasting, it can be recycled later down the road, and it is easier to clean and maintain.

With all of these wonderfully cost-effective, innovative, and green considerations, you’ll enjoy a novel sense of awareness when designing your ideal home or commercial business in Irvine, California. For more inspiration and space optimizing solutions, don’t hesitate to check out the best glass office wall partitions, sliding glass closet doors, sliding room dividers and accessories offered at The Sliding Door Company. Visit Us Online to browse our online viewing catalog and Enjoy A Free Consultation from one of our team members to actualize your vision today!

TSDC 1005

What You Might Love About Working From Home and the Benefits

Interior Design Trends

As we begin to return to a sense of normalcy within the work world, as well as within our daily routines, many of us are beginning to question the need to return to the standard “office”. After jumping through the initial hoops of quarantine, and relearning how to craft our own daily schedules, many of us still holding jobs came to find that working from home wasn’t so bad after all. This self-isolation bred many unexpected benefits, such as increased time with friends and family, the ability to choose our working hours, and the chance to fit in more physical exercise and outdoor time. These silver linings of the once dreaded WFH mandate not only granted us access to a more well-rounded day, but it also forced us to look at our relative environmental impact, and how our work week contributed heavily to our annual carbon footprint.

Now that our economy is beginning to reopen, and our options are broadening, we begin to question if returning to the way things were is a good idea. If undertaking the daily commute and eight-hour office day was working for us, or if it’s actually stunting our potential to grow as individuals, taxing the natural environment, and straining our personal relationships. Making the move to work from home as a more permanent, or part-time solution is inherently a much greener, sustainable option as compared with working “in house”. If unsure how working from home could lead to a greener lifestyle, we’re about to unpack the truth of existing in the 9-5 work world.

Commute Guilt

Have you ever experienced commute guilt? That is, the sinking feeling whilst sitting in stop and go traffic, with the overwhelming feeling that you might be contributing to the problem. Not just the problem of peak commute traffic, but the overarching environmental problem. Well, you’re not alone. Most commuters share similar distress, and for good reason. Traffic, idling vehicles and too many single-passenger cars on the road contribute heavily to harmful CO2 emissions each and every day. Vehicle exhaust not only pollutes our atmosphere and decreases air quality, but it also slowly depletes the ozone layer which keeps our planet cool and our atmospheric temperature stable. By making the conscious decision to either take available public transportation, ride a bike to work, carpool or to scrap the commute altogether, you’ll significantly slash your annual carbon footprint. Working from home is the best way to become a low-impact human.

Will That Be For Here or To Go?

Ever noticed how much excess packaging goes into take-out food? An enormous amount of single-use plastic packaging is used each and every day from the working class who eat out on their lunchtime break. Ordering food to go is understandably a necessity during a thirty-minute lunch break to afford you the time, convenience, and taste you desire during a grueling workweek. And while this solution is practical, it is the least environmentally friendly option for consumption. When you choose to work from home, chances are you’ll be more inclined to make your own lunch, cook home meals, and use a coffee mug rather and washable utensils. Compare this with styrofoam containers, plastic utensils and straws, throw away plastic or paper coffee cups (which almost always have a plastic lid), and the effects of that waste are obvious. Of course, you could always pack your own lunch, bring a reusable coffee cup, and do your best to only buy from restaurants who use paper packaging and have an eco-conscious business model, but chances are, those options are few and far between.

Commercial Resources

Something we don’t often consider regarding our places of work is the number of resources large commercial buildings suck up in order to maintain a healthy and comfortable working environment for its inhabitants. Take air conditioning and heating, for example. The amount of electricity and chemicals product needed to power a large-scale HVAC system have a profound effect on our natural environment. These units are often energy guzzlers, left running all the time, and are not using alternative energy sources to power them. When you work from home, you can better control your A/C and heat usage, the amount of lighting (typically offices need more intense lighting due to a limited supply of natural light), and other high-impact resources.

So What Can I Do?

If you feel called to work freelance or split your week between in-office and at-home days, there are some helpful spatial solutions you can integrate into your home to craft an ideal home office that will afford you space, concentration, and the separation you need for a successful workday. First, consider integrating glass room dividers into a corner of your home that happens to have extra unused space. These handy and easy-to-construct glass wall partitions and sliding room dividers are breezy to install and help to retain a stylish aesthetic to compliment your thoughtful interiors. Sliding glass barn doors are another fantastic spatial solution, and a simple way to create separation between two distinct spaces. Glass barn doors have that beautiful modern-contemporary look while still paying homage to a rustic classic. These no-construction-needed glass walls integrate flawlessly into any home and provide real walls for your desired home office!

With all of the added benefits of being your own boss, creating your own work schedule, and making your workday work for you, you can feel good about your morning commute being from your bedroom to the kitchen, and from the kitchen right into to your new home office. No waste, no guilt. Instantly increase your clean karma with a WFH solution. For more inspiration and space optimizing solutions, don’t hesitate to check out the best sliding closet doors, tri fold dividers, sliding room dividers, and spatial solutions offered at The Sliding Door Company. Visit Us Online to browse our online viewing catalog and Enjoy A Free Consultation from one of our team members to actualize your vision today!

Pandemic Safety and Your Business

Interior Design Trends

After about three months of uncertainty, job loss, strain, and discomfort, we are now finally starting to see a shift in the current pandemic outcome. With a national decline in cases and deaths, there has been a large push to restimulate the economy as best we can, come out of hiding so to speak, and make attempts at putting the pieces back together, with the tools we have left. However, despite the inherent necessity for jobs and work, many remain skeptical if these advances are premature, and more importantly, if they are putting everyone at risk. Without adequate testing and controlled isolation of those carrying the virus, it is exceedingly dangerous to assume that this will simply just disappear with time. On a global scale, the way we live, interact, do business, and provide services, will never be the same. International trade will evolve and require strict standards and safety precautions, the food and beverage industry will see unprecedented requirements and regulations in order to operate, and most businesses can expect to see fewer customers, and will be asked to take enhanced measures in order to safeguard visitors.

So, as a business owner, you now become rightfully bestowed with the responsibility to protect and provide a safe environment for your customers, patrons, and clients. Now, if you’re like most Americans, you may be wondering what these accommodations look like. What the financial strain these new “conditions” may have on your business, and how to implement social distancing tactics without compromising your vision. How does one go about increasing security while creating distance in socially close spaces? How can a business work within the new normal and still stay afloat? Below we have a few recommendations on how to not only keep your business running throughout these difficult times but also how to ensure the public that your establishment is a non-threat to their health and safety.

Create Distance With Smart Spatial Solutions

We are starting to see businesses of all kinds and sizes integrate wall partitions, room dividers, and alone tri-fold dividers into their waiting areas, and throughout vast open floor plans in order to create safer environments for workers and customers alike. Not just commercial businesses, but educational institutions, libraries, and restaurants are now also starting to utilize wall partitions and room dividers. These easy-to-install glass partitions can effectively create additional spatial separation and enhanced safety within indoor environments. Being the owner of any establishment or facility, you should consider making use of the available spatial solutions, and start to integrate glass room partitions, sliding room dividers, and other easy-to-clean glass space dividers throughout your business to create enhanced separation and safety. Decreasing the amount of foot traffic and potential contact between visitors and employees is a crucial step in a safer business. One of the most noteworthy benefits of glass walls is their antimicrobial surface. Staff can easily clean and disinfect within seconds, being that glass walls are resistant to damage and water, and are not porous like acrylic surfaces. Our glass walls are conveniently offered in a wide range of glass opacities, from completely opaque, to see-through transparent. They require no construction and take less than hours to be installed by our team of professional installers, making this one solution that won’t break the bank or cost your business weeks of cumbersome construction.

Limit Capacity and Encourage Face Coverings

By limiting your business’s overall intake capacity, you can safeguard everyone involved. By choosing to half your normal capacity, you effectively create increased distance and reduce the chance of person-to-person contact. This keeps the indoor air quality much fresher and allows visitors the peace of mind they’re looking for. Additionally, by requiring face coverings within businesses that allow for it, you can create a healthier environment and protect against airborne viral spreading.

Mandate Employees and Workers to Comply With Enhanced Safety Standard

While this may take a bit of initial work to develop new standards and regulations for employees and staff to follow, the benefits are well worth the work. Stay up to date on all the latest health recommendations from the CDC to understand what the most effective methods for controlling the spread of viral disease and sickness are, as well as learn more about sanitation standards and cleaning necessities. Once you have everyone on board and in the know, it will be much easier to control and regulate these new practices moving forward. Owning a business will also require you to think of ways that can allow customers to enter and exit your establishment with the least amount of contact. Limit the need for your patrons and employees to physically touch door handles, menus, and other such communal things that could hold germs and harmful bacteria. Ask your staff to continuously sanitize, deep clean, and disinfect all surfaces and communal items to ensure the cleanest working environment possible.

Enclosed glass corner office with modern sliding doors

For more inspiration and space-optimizing solutions, don’t hesitate to check out the best glass wall partitions, sliding glass barn doors, and spatial solutions offered at The Sliding Door Company. Our in-store locations are not available during this time, so please do Visit Us Online to browse our online viewing catalog and Enjoy A Free Consultation from one of our team members to actualize your vision today!

How to Self-Construct A Home Office During COVID 19

Interior Design Trends

The past two months have been a complete whirlwind of emotions, uncertainties, and swift transitions since Coronavirus hit U.S. shores in February. Starting with a crash course on how to adapt to quickly changing landscapes, the virus later spurred the birth of new routines, taught us how to order our entire lives online, and more than anything- COVID 19 has forced us all to spend an unprecedented amount of time at home. For anyone still holding a job, or those able to do remote work, having a space at home that allows for concentration and productivity has been an absolute god-send. Though, if you’re like most stay-at-home workers, your “home office” situation might look a little different than the executive suite we all dream of. Tired of roughing it amongst the battlezone of children, pets, and loud neighbors? Wishing you had a peaceful work sanctuary right about now? Well, here are four simple tricks and tips for transforming your home interiors into a Pinterest-worthy, envy-invoking dream office. Warning: you may never want to return to work ever again.

Enclosed frosted glass corner home office with modern sliding doors

Step #1: Find the Ideal Atmosphere

If an empty room is not available, no worries! Creating a home office out of thin air is essentially what glass wall partitions and sliding room dividers were made for. When setting out to determine your in-house office “location”, take into consideration the available natural light, the surrounding noise contributors, the amount of foot traffic that area gets, as well as the space’s functionality within your home. Once you’ve picked out your little slice, set about visualizing where you’ll need your walls to be installed, or a room divider to be placed.

Step #2: Craft A Room From Nothing

Next, you must decide what kind of room partition/dividers your space would benefit from best. This all depends on the type of home you have, your children or roommate situation, and your available space. With so many options, ranging from different glass opacities, and handle types, to accessories, frames, and overall design, you’ll be able to find an option that integrates into the rest of your home flawlessly. After picking and installing super easy to set up temporary glass walls (or glass room dividers) you’ll have a better idea of the actual square footage you’re working with. If your home is designed with a natural “nook” somewhere within the living room, use that floorplan to install a sliding glass barn door, or a floor to ceiling room divider that provides the privacy you crave while maintaining an artistic flourish. You can then envision what you can fit into your new office, what supplies you’ll need, how to decorate it, and what to perhaps abandon out of necessity.

Fixed privacy wall for partitioning and people seating in the chairs while waiting

Step #3: Spiff It Up

Any office, be it at home or within a real office building, should feel inviting enough to encourage a productive workflow. The days of fluorescent lighting, rows of grey cubicles, no natural light, and an overall depressive atmosphere are long over. Now that you have the pleasure of working from home, which luckily, excludes the once cumbersome commute, you have the opportunity to design your office however you like. Everything from artistic lamps, to thoughtful wall art, the perfect height desk, and a comfortable chair will make all the difference when curating your office’s interior design. And if you’re feeling a bit extra, introduce some relaxing air purifiers and beautiful houseplants to add that sanctuary feel to your new study. If the space allows, you may even consider painting one of the walls to introduce a lively pop of color and emotion to your space. Luckily, the ball is in your court when crafting your idyllic home office.

Step #4: Sit Back, Relax and Get Back to The Grind

Now that your exciting “executive suite” is all set up and ready to be utilized, take a few moments to appreciate your hard work and soak in the freedom of a balanced work/home life. How rare it is, the opportunity to spend more time with your loved ones, enjoy your beautiful home throughout all hours of the day and work in your pj’s. To retire that daily commute and the tiring politics of an office environment and be able to just sink into your projects. So, take that necessary moment to feel gratitude for your situation, and then get back to it!

With the above tips and tricks, your new home office could be an absolute breeze to set up. For more inspiration and space-optimizing solutions, don’t hesitate to check out the best glass wall partitions, sliding glass barn doors, and spatial solutions offered at The Sliding Door Company. Our in-store locations are not available during this time, so please do Visit Us Online to browse our online viewing catalog and Enjoy A Free Consultation from one of our team members to actualize your vision today!