Frameless Shower Doors
Frameless glass shower doors have a stylishness of their own, to say nothing of a little extra safety factor, since there is no frame to become damaged and possibly inflict a cut or scrape upon you as you enter or exit your shower stall. In addition, if you want to refit your stall with a frameless door, you almost do not have to go further than Kohler.
The storied Wisconsin fixtures maker features at least ten frameless shower doors priced between $237 and $600. The K-70210-L-SH Purist door is described by Kohler itself as open, light-filtering, and three inches of adjustability for the door, and can be installed to open either left or right depending on the bathroom or shower area layout. The door is available in clear or frosted glass and, while listing for $789, it can be found for as low as $582.
The Fluence (Model K-702400-L-SH) features the increasingly prominent Eurostyle design. Available only in clear glass, the door is a quarter-inch thick, allows inch-and-a-half adjustability for out-of-plumb installations, and can likewise be installed to open left or right. This door also features a roller-compression latch securing its closure as you shower.
Artistcraft makes frameless glass shower doors and even frameless glass shower stalls, if you want to go all the way to the Eurostyle look and ambience. One of their more distinctive frameless doors is a curve-top door with hinges on the long edge of the door rather than top or bottom corners, and you can order your door custom-drilled to open right or left. This door comes in clear (three eighths or half-inch thicknesses), obscured or frosted (three-eighths or half-inch thicknesses), or patterned (three-eighths inch thickness only) glass.
One of the stall offerings is a neo-angled stall that features frameless glass doors and flanking walls with a header rail. The opening width can be made in eighteen to thirty inches widths, and the standard height is sixty-six inches. As with the curve-top door described above, the glass comes in clear (three-eighths or half-inch thicknesses), obscured (same), or patterned (three-eighths thick only) glass, and the header rail offers about a two-inch opening between the rail and the doors and flanking panels for maximum steam ventilation.
Do-it-yourselfers may find a frameless shower kit challenging, and eShowerDoor.com offers several such kits with very flexible style and hardware options. Their Euro S5 frameless shower stall kit comes with the erratic edge style, their Custom Style 5 kit features a frameless doorway cut into a larger frameless glass panel plus a full panel that can be cut to your specifications if your stall area is bisected by other bathroom fixture or short wall. Those are only two examples. Each of their kits comes with your designated glass panels cut to your measurements, hinges and pull handles in assorted styles, bottom wipes, U-channels, stainless screws and anchors, pre-taped seals, silicone sealants, masonry drill bits, and other accessories.
The Shower Door Store offers a number of reasonably priced frameless shower doors. Their 3400-3500 series is a frameless sliding shower door with optional second towel rack, options for custom widths up to 72 inches, and starts at $295. Their Infinity French-style frameless door kit is a door pair with continuous hinge (running the length of the door), twin handles, an optional towel rack and handle combination, and starts at $795.
Essentially, a frameless shower door makes the bath area seem larger and more open and, in a benefit any homeowner appreciates, is easier to clean than a shower curtain, a sliding track, or a framed shower door. And if safety is your concern, be advised that the thicker, heavier glass involved is durable and difficult to break—but if it should break, because it becomes safety glass thanks to the tempering process in its manufacture the door will shatter into several thousand tiny pieces that actually reduce your injury risk.
