A shower corner is, as it sounds, a corner in the bathroom where you shower. However, it is far less boring than that! Today’s shower corners basically give you endless options to achieve exactly the style and feel you want in your bathroom!
Shower in a corner
There can be many reasons for choosing to install a shower corner. Often, it has a lot to do with wanting a barrier against the rest of the bathroom so that the water does not splash onto bathroom furniture and other furnishings when you shower.
Some advantages of a shower corner
- Use the space in the bathroom efficiently: A shower corner with two glass doors can be folded into the shower space, which is very handy when you have a smaller bathroom and really need the space.
- A more comfortable shower experience: Enclosing yourself in a private mini-room when showering and soaping yourself in can give a greater sense of privacy, especially if there are several people using the bathroom at the same time.
- Aesthetically pleasing: Glass doors give the bathroom a modern and open feel. They can also make the room seem larger because they don’t create a visual barrier.
- Light transmission: Glass doors let light through, creating a brighter and airier feeling in the shower and the bathroom as a whole.
- Easy cleaning: Glass is easy to clean and maintain, especially if treated with an anti-limescale coating. This makes it easy to keep the shower clean and fresh.
- Visual control: With two glass doors, you easily get an overview of the shower and the bathroom as a whole. It can be practical to, for example, keep track of when it’s time for cleaning.
- Flexibility in design: Glass doors are available in different styles, patterns and colors, giving you the opportunity to adapt the shower to your personal taste and bathroom design.
- Increased ventilation: Good air circulation is extremely important, especially in the bathroom! Retractable glass doors provide better air circulation and help keep the bathroom free from moisture and mould.
- Protects other furniture and machines: If you are forced to place your washing machine right next to the shower, a shower wall is the perfect protection to prevent it from being damaged by water. The same of course applies to bathroom furniture, which is often made to withstand a certain amount of water but not constant splashing from the shower
The standard corner
The most common shower corner consists of two doors, sometimes straight and other times arched. It doesn’t really matter which variant you choose, the space inside the shower is about the same in both cases. It is primarily an aesthetic issue if you prefer the rounded version over the one with straight glasses.
Then it matters more which size corner you choose to insert. Standard size for shower corners is 90×90, which fits in most bathrooms. 90×90 shower cubicles are considered to be just the right size because they do not require much space in the bathroom while providing comfortable space inside the shower corner.
The weight of the glass also plays a big role, of course, because it hangs entirely on its wall fittings. A normal shower door 90 cm often weighs around 25-30 kilos, and for every centimeter you add, you both increase the weight and move the center of gravity further from the wall. It puts greater pressure on fittings, wall, screw and plug. Therefore, it can be difficult to find larger glass doors as they simply require stronger fittings, walls, screws and plugs.
Style & Design
When it comes to finer versions of shower corners, the reverse is often the case. The more you pay, the less you see the shower. Since a normal shower corner only consists of fittings and glass, that is where you can direct your focus.
On finer models, fittings are used that are less visible and blend in with the rest of the bathroom. An example is a pivoting fully transparent shower door that sits with only a small fitting in the floor and ceiling. It is a shower door that is practically not visible at all.
Colors and patterns
If you want to go beyond the classic straight shower corner with matte profiles and clear glass, there is now a lot to choose from! Just by changing to curved glass, you can immediately get a more relaxed feeling in the bathroom than if you choose the more modern straight version. Round glasses are also slightly smaller and easier to fold in than their straight counterparts. But there are more choices!
Most manufacturers today offer at least 2 different types of profiles: glossy and black. It is not at all unusual that you can also get them in matt aluminium, brass-coloured, copper-coloured and white. Combine that with the fact that the glass can often be chosen in clear glass, frosted, semi-frosted, smoked and special variants such as mirror glass and crushed glass.
Already here, we can easily put together shower corners in all possible styles! A corner consisting of straight doors with chrome profiles and clear glass gives a very minimalistic and modern impression. If you instead want a more exclusive and luxurious feeling, you can instead choose a corner with less brass fittings and a lot of glass. Then there are those who have a bathroom with many users and want some privacy while standing in the shower. So what better than to insert a corner with frosted glass (maybe even patterned?) in the shared bathroom?
Why is a more expensive shower corner better than cheap ones?
- Better quality of fittings: As with everything else, the quality of fittings varies a lot. A more expensive fitting often lasts longer and has fewer moving parts that break easily. Cheap models often use plastic for hinges and do not have as well thought out solutions for e.g. storage.
- Coating: Even the color or surface layer of the fittings is of different quality. The chrome plating, the black color, the brass surface will hopefully last as long as the rest of the shower!
- The purity of the glass: If you look at a pane of glass obliquely from the side, it sometimes changes color in the greenish direction. The clearer the glass, the cleaner it is. Very nice models have hardly any discoloration at all!
- Fewer and smaller fittings: The smaller and fewer fittings a shower corner has, the better balanced it should be. In practice, this means that you had to spend more time designing and drawing the shower corner.
It may seem like a boring thing: two glass doors and some moldings. The options available today make it possible to choose a shower corner that fits both your style and your bathroom perfectly. By installing a shower corner in a certain look, you can easily change the whole feel of the bathroom!
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