Hi everyone,
Thought I'd share our first walkthrough on T2. We have a C2 accessibility unit (874 sq ft; 2 bedroom 2 bath) because we are on the lower floors (10 and lower).
Here's the album with description:
https://imgur.com/a/b4rA94S
Pros from our first walk-through:
- No major defects that we notice; SHAPE team gave us a list of things they already inspected for us
- Our guide will show main features of your unit (gas stove, oven, gas shutoff, kitchen sink and dishwasher shutoff, washer water shutoff, main water shutoff, electrical panel, etc...)
- Quality of construction looked exactly like the demo units (kitchen, appliances, dining table, Boche appliances, microwave is Panasonic), only found some minor issues that are hardly noticeable or can be fixed (small patch of uneven drywall; low-voltage lighting wires dangling under sink in the ensuite)
- No carpet floors (we thought there would be in bedrooms)
- Kitchen cabinets are very spacious, with 3 pullout drawers on top of each other on the kitchen island
- Ensuite bathroom is bigger (accessibility) but at cost of a smaller walk-in closet
- Good sized balcony (we were expecting smaller depth of space)
- Automatic button to exit for our front-door (accessibility)
- There is a SHAPE app which will show all sorts of features of your home (ie. warranty information & registration for appliances, strata related info); doesn't seem like you can register for it yet until possession date
Cons (disclaimer: most of these are our subjective thoughts and are mostly minor...):
- Not our SHAPE guide's fault, but for the minor issues we brought up, it felt like we were brushed off. She kept saying along the lines of, "we will need to review it first to see if it does not meets our quality standards before it can be brought to the developer's attention"
- Couldn't step out on to balcony because it's still considered an active construction
- Part of our hallway space not exactly as depicted on the floor plan; hallway space from the nook leading to the kitchen is not as wide because of the huge cabinets; and the hallway space in front of the second bedroom is "shorter" (or the bedroom door is bigger than depicted; hard to explain without images)
- En-suite bathroom is not a sliding door as depicted on the floor plan
- Giant concrete pillar (I measured about 31" diameter) making us rethink our layout for living room setup. We're considering using a TV pillar mount which wraps around the pillar to allow for a much wanted small couch with (modular) sectional
- Built in dining table is tiny (approx. 30" x 43"); need to reconsider getting smaller dinning chairs
- Space for bar stools on the kitchen island is much smaller than it looks; if someone were seated on bar stools, that walkway space would be blocked or you would really have to squeeze through
- (major issue) Walk-in closet of master bedroom is laughable (24 inches wide x 47 inches deep) even though we knew it would be small; but seeing it in person makes us think it is borderline unusable space because of the small width; walking in, my shoulders nearly touch the side walls. This is making us rethink that we need to buy a separate wardrobe and place within the limited bedroom space and consider the walk-in closet as some other storage space.
Other notes/thoughts:
- Didn't get to see the lobby as it's still under active construction; we accessed our unit from the elevators at P2 (same level as Sporting Life entrance); in the future, this access would also be the most covered way from rain/snow to get to the Skytrain
- Our SHAPE guide told us that there are "metal sheets" behind the drywall; I think she meant metal beams/studs (I might of heard wrong)? She told us if we want to mount anything to the wall (like a heavy picture frame or TV wall mount), they must be professionally installed
- 2nd bathroom has 2 doors. 1st door swings open to the hallway, 2nd door is a sliding door to the 2nd bedroom
- (idea) It would be cool if our automatic door can be "smart home" converted to be opened remotely to take advantage of your accessible unit
- Window blinds cannot be removed because of strata consistency rules; the pull chains are held down looped on the bottom of the window sill; blinds are 3% light pass-through and the ones in bedroom are 1% light pass-through
- Start looking for a mortgage approval after your walk-through, as it will be close to completion
- The
walk-through only lasts 1h30min and that
timer starts when you check-in at the presentation centre; so plan ahead on what you want to inspect and take pictures of. At a minimum, I recommend you designate 1 person to measure what you need (for furnishings) and 1 person to inspect functional features (outlets, drawers, toilets, doors, hot water, etc...). The SHAPE guide will also spend about 15-30mins of that time going through in detail of the main features of your home (water/gas valves, electrical panel, appliances, etc...). The first time you go through your walk-through, you'll easily eat up your time by just looking/awing/imagining how you would work your space. We had 3 people (me, wife and a friend) to inspect and it felt like we didn't inspect everything we wanted or take those extra pictures that we needed (ie. didn't take a picture of the inside of the fridge).
Overall, we had a lot of things that we were unimpressed, but it's not the end of the world. We will eventually make the space work. Just hard to rethink how we make use of the limited space than expected.
Hope this is helpful to all of you and your first expectations.
If anyone has ideas on how to rework our walk-in closet space (24" wide x 47" deep) to something more functional, please share. It's giving us a headache to consider getting a separate wardrobe.
2020-02-24 edit: added some additional notes
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