Hi everyone, we wanted to share our feedback on the choice of a full-glass swing door for the kitchen-living room door.
Firstly, the kitchen and dinning area is connected by a door. Initially we were following the concept of a design that has a similar longish layout like ours here. It was using a wood frame-glass panel bi fold door. As the design developed, after we decided to introduce a "window" between the kitchen and living room (so we can keep an eye on the kids in the living room while cooking), the decision for the door naturally followed. see our kitchen-dining area concept below
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| kitchen-dining area concept with glass door |
An elevation view of the "window" and glass door. If you have noticed, we put some decals and clear stickers as a few of our first time visitors did not realise the glass door and bumped into it. Using a sliding door would have compromised into our storage space to the sliding pocket and would block the "window". Another option was to use bi-fold doors but we did not like the rails especially in a heavy cooking oil environment.
The glass is made of a full piece of tempered glass, meaning that it has been strengthened by heat treatment so it is harder to break. In any case it is broken, it will shatter into harmless tiny pieces of glass. We have asked specifically for the edges of the glass door to be chamfered to remove any sharp corners.
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| window and glass door with decals and stickers |
The glass door can open in and outwards. This allowed for some flexibility in usage.
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| glass door swing outwards |
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| glass door swing inwards |
Overall we are quite happy with the choice. Specific points as follows:
Plus points
1. effective keeps out kitchen oil, probably like any other systems
2. fits into our design and the adjacent window
3. in-out swing was useful when serving hot food
4. allows light sharing between the living room and kitchen which gets the evening and morning sun respectively.
5. no rails or sliding pocket
Minus points and what we could have done better
1. However, a word of caution is to train babies and toddlers not to plan in the door swing zone. The glass door edge and floor can form a nasty pinch on the little toes, which has happened twice. Besides reinforcing that this it a NO-PLAY zone, we would probaby looking into attaching a soft rubber for the lower door edge to reduce the pinching effect.
2. The glass door swing mechanism is a PH and is still working fine. It was only after it was installed before we researched that Dorma was the best brand. I would insist on a Dorma if I knew earlier.
