Creating a partition with glass blocks

benson1980

Hi, after some expert advice/opinions on the below please. Here's our current divide between the kitchen/utility room...



What we are doing is removing the partition wall both sides. So on the left hand side of the picture the edge of where I have taken off one side of the plasterboard is where the solid wall starts. The other side, this is also just a partition attached to the side wall of the house.

To create a divide between the two rooms we want to put glass blocks up on the left hand side, to where the current partition ends or perhaps a bit further across bearing in mind the partition on the right will no longer be there...

First question is, I have seen these kits on the internet which look like they might be the best bet. Has anyone got any experience of these?

http://www.glassblocksdirect.co.uk/framelight_install.asp

Second question is, what to do at the bottom? Obviously I will have skirting running along the solid wall, and I'm guessing it will look really odd if the skirting just stops, and the glass brick partition starts, and goes all the way to the floor? The best option seems to be running skirting all around the bottom of the glass brick partition. That said, I presume it will look better if I build some kind of base on the floor, to put the skirting around, and then build the glass blocks on top of this? If so, not sure what the easiest way is to construct the base.

I know there's lots of knowledgeable people on here so thought I'd ask before I go rushing off and buying the glass blocks and seeing what peoples opinion is.

Thanks

Doozergirl

Glass blocks were fashionable for about three minutes. They just look tacky, to my mind, with strong connotations of 'changing rooms' but aren't cheap.

I'd reassess the problem. What are you trying to acheive? Light into the kitchen? You can't place anything against the glass blocks, like units, so why the divide? Glass blocks will block light themselves, where they are partially opaque and the fixings are totally opaque and numerous. you won't gain much.

If you want light and storage then I would consider a half wall that you place units up to but will stream light through, unfiltered. If you have to, put glass blocks from halfway, solving the skirting problem.

If you want light and privacy, but storage isn't a problem then I'd opt for double doors.

If you just want light, knock a new window into the appropriate external wall!

benson1980

Not really trying to achieve anything really in terms of more light etc. The partition wall doesn't really work but we don't really want it completely open plan. Something like this (albeit this is obviously bedroom rather than kitchen) is probably the closest we can find to the look we are trying to acheive.



Appreciate the views on glass blocks and not everyone likes them but we want to do something different