Anyone in a Marigold Corner?

[GreyingJay]

Anyone here bought a Marigold Corner in any of the Mattamy developments such as Fairwinds West, Monahan Landing, Half Moon Bay?

Here is the floor plan:
http://www.mattamyhomes.com/Ottawa/C...goldCorner.pdf

I am this close to signing up for one.

Those of you who have been on the forums for a while may remember I live in Fairwinds Phase 1 in a townhouse... seven mostly happy years later I have been looking for an opportunity to move up to a small single home. I've been looking at options over the years, from Heritage Hills, to Monahan Landing, to Trailwest, to Blackstone, to Fairwinds West. I like the Kanata-Stittsville area.

The Marigold seems really nice -- the corner lot means less crowding in with your neighbors, the floor plan seems open and airy, without being excessively large. Double car garage is handy and this is the cheapest way to get into a home with one. I know it's missing a formal dining room but the breakfast area can serve that purpose for smaller groups. The model in Monahan Landing is beautiful. And... the price is right, with current incentives you can get one for $350-365K depending on the community.

So, anyone bought one, or moved into one? Feedback? Tips? I'm particularly interested in knowing if the upstairs "laundry closet" (as shown in the model home) is practical, as I definitely like the idea.

Thanks guys! Fingers crossed on a potential second Mattamy home purchase!

[homeshoppin]

We don't have that model but we had a laundry "closet" in our previous townhouse and it was awesome. We still had a shelf above the units that stored all our laundry items and you can still install cabinets above in lieu if you prefer. The doors we always kept closed unless we were changing over laundry so that wasn't a problem. The only things was that when we had our dirty laundry piles in the middle of doing laundry they sat in the hallway. But we have a laundry room now and the dirty clothes piles still still on the floor in the hallway or on our bedroom floor.

We don't use the laundry sink except for cleaning paint brushes and other dirty things so it doesn't matter to us to not have the laundry tub upstairs.

The one thing we do prefer now with the laundry room is that we have a fan and the space to leave the washer door open to dry out after being used. This helps prevent that weird smell you can sometimes get. With the laundry closet there wasn't room to leave that door open without leaving the actual laundry closet open. Instead we shoved it closed but wedged a box or something in the machine door to prop it open to dry out that way.

[Nellyloo]

Hi! We don't have a marigold either, but also had a laundry closet in our previous house. Basically the same experience as homeshoppin. My only issue with the laundry was that it was on the same floor as the bedrooms which wouldn't normally be a problem unless you have young children who are very light sleepers. I couldn't do laundry after 7pm which was frustrating. We opted to have our laundry on the main level in our new home, and I prefer it that way.

[GreyingJay]

Thank you both for your feedback! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the laundry closet. Did you find that you had to shop specially for machines that would fit the depth? I just want to make sure things will fit inside

As for keeping the washer door open, in my house now I usually leave it "almost" closed with an inch or two hanging open. I used to leave the door hanging wide open but I eventually found it was getting a little bit harder to line up the latches when you close the door -- in other words the weight of the door hanging open was slowly causing it to droop.

Main level laundry is nice too -- my parents have that, and Mattamy offers that as an option in the Primrose II model home they have on display in Monahan Landing. It looks nice.

[good2know]

An upstairs fam room might see limited use depending on ages of any kids. Can you make that a 4th bedroom/guestroom maybe?

[homeshoppin]

Originally Posted by GreyingJay

Thank you both for your feedback! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the laundry closet. Did you find that you had to shop specially for machines that would fit the depth? I just want to make sure things will fit inside

As for keeping the washer door open, in my house now I usually leave it "almost" closed with an inch or two hanging open. I used to leave the door hanging wide open but I eventually found it was getting a little bit harder to line up the latches when you close the door -- in other words the weight of the door hanging open was slowly causing it to droop.

Main level laundry is nice too -- my parents have that, and Mattamy offers that as an option in the Primrose II model home they have on display in Monahan Landing. It looks nice.

Good question. In our appliance specs it said 27x27 (or maybe it was 29x29) maximum. If we went by those measurements then we wouldn't have been able to get standard size front loaders. But we were determined and so we went into the model home which was standard and we measured and sure enough there was more room. We were able to fit standard sized washer/dryer machines with a rigid dryer hose. It was a tight fight but we made it work and didn't regret it. It meant we were able to take the washer/dryer with us to the new/current home.

[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by good2know

An upstairs fam room might see limited use depending on ages of any kids. Can you make that a 4th bedroom/guestroom maybe?

That is a possibility. It can be done as a PPO option for a few thousand dollars, but I imagine it also wouldn't be too difficult to build a wall and door later as a renovation.

[good2know]

Originally Posted by GreyingJay

That is a possibility. It can be done as a PPO option for a few thousand dollars, but I imagine it also wouldn't be too difficult to build a wall and door later as a renovation.

Yes easy afterwards especially if you use a wardrobe instead of a closet.

[GreyingJay]

Thanks everyone for the feedback... I did it! Here we go!

[homeshoppin]

Congrats! Let the countdown begin.