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Glass shower doors can make your bathroom look larger and brighter particularly if part of a frameless shower enclosure. But a clear door is still a door and you might run into some design issues when trying to renovate your existing shower to a glass model. This is especially true if you have unusual space needs that need to be met.

Here are two ways you can make a glass shower door – or frameless enclosure—work in any bathroom space.

Partial Obstruction on One End

Are you turning an old bathtub into a shower? Is there a window jutting out or a short wall on one end of the bathtub that would seem to make a glass shower impossible? This quirky design does make your shower dreams a bit trickier but not impossible.

Talk to your shower dealer to explain the problem and ask about potential solutions. A likely solution is something called a splash wall, which is a partial clear wall that can build on or around the obstruction to provide a water barrier on that end.

Depending on your obstruction, the splash wall might and the obstruction might not fully cover that end of the shower. So a fully contained shower might not be possible and this setup can let in a draft. But if you're fine with the added air, this design can make your bathroom look even larger than a traditional glass setup due to the inclusion of existing architecture.

Height Issues

Due you have a particularly low ceiling in the area of the shower? Or do you have especially tall people who need to access the shower without bending down to get through the doors?

Again, it's best to talk to your shower professional or someone at a place like Mitchell Window & Door to determine the specific options available to you. But, in general, doors can simply be made shorter to fit into an area with a low ceiling. The headroom for tall people can be slightly trickier.

If you have a shower pan only without a tub on the lower half, a frameless glass enclosure will work for any height as there's not a bar overhead to get in the way. But putting a frameless enclosure on top of a bathtub is cumbersome and detracts from the beauty of the glass structure. If you're intent on keeping the tub and the overhead frame of a sliding glass door would get in the way, it's better to simply go with a shower curtain.