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Charlie West (Charles & Gaukel) | 31 fl | Complete
For anyone who has moved in or has completed their pre-delivery inspection, what did you think of the ceiling? I'm told they were going for an industrial look, but it looked very unfinished to me with all the visible lines and cutouts.
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Pic...


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(10-17-2021, 01:26 PM)Serendipity Wrote: For anyone who has moved in or has completed their pre-delivery inspection, what did you think of the ceiling? I'm told they were going for an industrial look, but it looked very unfinished to me with all the visible lines and cutouts.

If they were going for the industrial look, I would expect metal conduits, exposed duct, vents, etc. From the pic provided, it just seems like they're cheaping out.  I don't see anything else from the design of the building or the common elements that's industrial looking either. 

The industrial look goes well with converted lofts like the Arrow and the Kaufman.    Momentum took a similar approach for the ceiling on some units at 1 Victoria and the podium units in 100 Victoria/Garment.

Example: https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/23713...-kitchener
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(10-18-2021, 02:50 PM)519 Wrote: If they were going for the industrial look, I would expect metal conduits, exposed duct, vents, etc. From the pic provided, it just seems like they're cheaping out. 

I think it's a trade-off on ceiling height. The disclosure docs make it clear that "9' ceilings" mean 9' slab-to-slab. Using vinyl flooring + exposed concrete you end up with a finished height that's very close to the full 9'. Other places will put a sheet of drywall across the concrete, but that takes another inch or two off your ceiling height.

You're right it's not very industrial, as all the ductwork goes in to the bulkheads (which create 8' ceilings underneath them). An industrial look would be to not have the bulkheads and leave everything exposed. However, exposed concrete has apparently had too many complaints on past projects (also why they painted it white, to reduce complaints, but apparently they're getting a lot of them for this too).

In the penthouse units they do 11' slab-to-slab, and then a flat drywall ceiling across at 10' (no bulkheads).
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Vinyl flooring? Surely you jest?
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(10-18-2021, 04:12 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Vinyl flooring? Surely you jest?

The Charlie West upgrade options had engineered hardwood as the included option, and 3 levels of vinyl as the premium upgrade options. High end vinyl looks pretty good these days.

Here's a photo I took in the CW decor centre. The engineered hardwood is the bottom cut-off row. I went with the top-right one, that you see the large pieces of. Vinyl goes everywhere in the suite, whereas the engineered hardwood options mean tile in the bathrooms and entryway.

   
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Yes, vinyl is far better than it used to be. I have even seen ceramic tiles that look just like wood. But I still like wood. Smile

Material aside, the offered options look very dark and rustic, apart from what you picked!
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(10-18-2021, 02:50 PM)519 Wrote:
(10-17-2021, 01:26 PM)Serendipity Wrote: For anyone who has moved in or has completed their pre-delivery inspection, what did you think of the ceiling? I'm told they were going for an industrial look, but it looked very unfinished to me with all the visible lines and cutouts.

If they were going for the industrial look, I would expect metal conduits, exposed duct, vents, etc. From the pic provided, it just seems like they're cheaping out.  I don't see anything else from the design of the building or the common elements that's industrial looking either. 

The industrial look goes well with converted lofts like the Arrow and the Kaufman.    Momentum took a similar approach for the ceiling on some units at 1 Victoria and the podium units in 100 Victoria/Garment.

Example:  https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/23713...-kitchener

Bauer Lofts had the same ceilings as my old unit there had it. I don't mind the look to be honest, but I see how not everyone would like it.
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(10-18-2021, 04:23 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Yes, vinyl is far better than it used to be. I have even seen ceramic tiles that look just like wood. But I still like wood. Smile

Material aside, the offered options look very dark and rustic, apart from what you picked!

I've installed vinyl in a couple bedrooms at my place, and they look great. They're not as cold as ceramic, but they aren't as warm as wood. Compared to laminate floors, these ones don't get damaged by water spills.
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I've looked (online) at a few of the loft units with the exposed pipes and ducts and it really does not appeal to me at all. I think the problem is two-fold: really high ceilings like you have at Kaufman seem to make the smallness of the space more pronounced. I think it would work better with larger units, but the small 1-bedroom ones just seem all the smaller for it. Secondly, I shudder at all the dust that would collect up there.
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I definitely think the ceiling just looks cheap l, however I can attest to the quality of non wood flooring options these days. My family lives in what is more than a century old farmhouse and we recently retrofitted the sunroom that had been added at some point, into a year round space. The entire house has hardwood floors but we decided to go with tile fashioned to look like wood because it was much less expensive and I gotta say it looks great. 
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(10-18-2021, 03:30 PM)taylortbb Wrote:
(10-18-2021, 02:50 PM)519 Wrote: If they were going for the industrial look, I would expect metal conduits, exposed duct, vents, etc. From the pic provided, it just seems like they're cheaping out. 

I think it's a trade-off on ceiling height. The disclosure docs make it clear that "9' ceilings" mean 9' slab-to-slab. Using vinyl flooring + exposed concrete you end up with a finished height that's very close to the full 9'. Other places will put a sheet of drywall across the concrete, but that takes another inch or two off your ceiling height.

You're right it's not very industrial, as all the ductwork goes in to the bulkheads (which create 8' ceilings underneath them). An industrial look would be to not have the bulkheads and leave everything exposed. However, exposed concrete has apparently had too many complaints on past projects (also why they painted it white, to reduce complaints, but apparently they're getting a lot of them for this too).

In the penthouse units they do 11' slab-to-slab, and then a flat drywall ceiling across at 10' (no bulkheads).

Its a complete cheap out. Nothing industrial about it, didnt even patch any joints. You can do a popcorn ceiling right on concrete, not the best either but looks better than this imo. They could have also offered actual smooth ceilings right on concrete...not sure if that was an option.
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Received this email from property management today. The parking garage situation in this building seems weird, complicated and unreliable. I'm not sure why they decided to go with a seemingly needlessly complex license plate reading camera instead of simple RFID tags, and it often takes FOREVER for the camera to read your license plate, and you have to awkwardly shuffle your vehicle back and forth until it registers. I'm just speculating, but I wouldn't be surprised if the damage caused to the garage doors are caused by people tailgating other vehicles to get around the awful license plate camera (I don't think that they'd be completely blameless in that case, but I can understand why). I hope that the license plate reading system won't get worse once it starts snowing.

It feels like they want to sell the extra parking spots in the garage to the public in the day when there are less owners parked in the garage which I don't mind, but I do mind that it comes at the cost of having significantly more friction to get into the parking garage by owners, and the building not having any visitor parking.

   
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A licence plate camera system can be very fast and reliable: think of the speeds on the 407 on- and off-ramps, for example. Public garages in Europe (including northern parts, which do see snow) often use licence plate recognition, too.

But an unreliable or excessively slow system could indeed prove to be a disaster.
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(10-28-2021, 02:45 PM)tomh009 Wrote: A licence plate camera system can be very fast and reliable: think of the speeds on the 407 on- and off-ramps, for example. Public garages in Europe (including northern parts, which do see snow) often use licence plate recognition, too.

But an unreliable or excessively slow system could indeed prove to be a disaster.

Ah, I've only used the 407 a handful of times so my memory might be a little fuzzy, but I believe that they use overhead cameras and not tollgates, right? This would give the system a lot more time to process the images instead of having to do them in real time, and it can always fall back to human verification if it fails to automatically read a license plate. I can't really speak about the public garages in Europe as most European countries I've travelled to I've just taken transit, but I don't recall such technology being used when I was taking a road trip across Spain.
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