THE GLASS FACTOR

Floor-to-ceiling glass walls can have a major impact on home design, from furniture placement to window coverings to fabric choices. Homeowners and professionals share how they've learned to deal with see-through style.

Even if privacy isn't a concern, most glass-walled homes need some kind of window covering to filter the sun's glare.

Designer Linda Miller encourages her clients, whenever possible, to address the issue during construction, such as installing a wall motor for motorized shades.

At Cobalt, units come with commercial-grade Mecho shades (blackout shades in bedrooms and optional sunscreen shades in living rooms), according to Scott Parkin, sales manager. "We learned the hard way in other projects that any transparency allows you to see in at night. You can't do a gauzy little shade and think you're going to have privacy."

Miller also encourages clients to consider the way window treatments look from outside the building. "Consistency is important, to uphold the building's image," she said. Many condo associations have covenants restricting the color of window treatments to similar neutral shades, so that the building can present a unified front from the street.

Furniture and decor
Those million-dollar views are a strong visual element that must be factored into the design, said designer Michael Crosby.

"There's so much going on with the view -- a lot of colors, textures and shapes -- that it's usually best to keep the design fairly simple," she said. "Even at night, it's not a black sheet of glass, it sparkles."

In client Ann Hengel's condo, they kept most of the furniture the same pale yellow color as the walls. "It's pretty monochromatic; we wanted a light, airy interior, so you feel like you're in the sky, floating," Crosby said.

Open spaces also call for larger-scale furniture than homeowners may be bringing from their previous homes. "Ceilings are often higher, and the scale of furniture is sometimes a disappointment," said designer Linda Miller. "A lot of things may look dwarfed."

Fading and sun damage
While today's low-E glass coatings help minimize the impact of the sun's harsh rays, glass condo dwellers are still advised to keep shades lowered during the day, to protect furniture and finishes from sun exposure.

Even with shades, designer Linda Miller strongly urges clients to choose furniture fabrics designed to resist fading. "A lot of things that sit in the sun long enough will change," she said. "You can have a different color on one side within six months." The good news is there are more attractive, sun-tolerant fabric options than ever before. "There's a lot to choose from to eliminate that worry."

All that light can play tricks with your color choices, especially when glass has been tinted to minimize glare. Hengel learned that firsthand when trying to find the right pale creamy yellow for her walls. "We wanted a buttery warmth to balance the coolness of the [blue-tinted] glass," Crosby said. But all the paint colors they tried looked slightly green in Hengel's space. "Finally, it was 'OK, we get it, blue and yellow make green,'" Hengel laughed. A paint expert from Hirschfield's paid an on-site visit and helped come up with a formula for the hue Hengel wanted. "The color we ended up with had a little orange in it," she said.

"If you have an extensive art collection, you really need to think about how to work this," said Scott Parkin, a real estate agent who also has a degree in design. "Either you need a really large home, with extensive interior space. Or you need to think about living someplace else. It does take away gallery space."

All that bright sunlight also can be damaging to works of art, particularly works on paper, such as photography, Parkin said. "You need to be really careful."