A Busy Tuesday.. Ikea and House Shopping.

So I am usually on my own on Tuesdays. I have a study session on Tuesday mornings and usually I head back home to study. However today I have a study session in about an hour for a midterm on Friday and Jenn had to stay around to talk to a professor. Instead of studying which I really should have Jenn and I went house and furniture shopping. We are not looking for an immediate buy but checking out our options none the less.

So first we were off to Ikea in Costa Mesa about 15 mins from UC Irvine. The Ikea was gigantic, its been a long, long time since I have been in an Ikea and I have to say I had fun. There is just so much to look at, it would take two or three go throughs to see everything. Of course I am looking for a great place to put a nice size plasma and my three game consoles and Jenn is looking at throws for a couch and art work.

So there wasn't much in the way of "technology" but I would say that we did see a few things we liked. We learned we both are a fan of modern, both a fan of dark wood and black frames. We are also a big fan of black and white photography as you can see below in a photo of the Eiffel Tower that we should have bought for like 7.99 or 24.99 including frame. We would have went with a black frame however.

I wasn't as big of a fan of the art work, but there was this one piece that we both liked and thought it would be good for a dining room. I wonder if Ikea minded me taking pictures in there store. Either way these were all taken with my iPhone, not bad right? Once again dark black frame.

So I didn't take more pictures of Ikea, I decided to take pictures late in the long maze that is Ikea. However for whatever reason instead of studying, we went to Portola Spring which is one of the nicest new developments I have ever seen. We went through a ton of developments, the place a few years back would have been sold out in weeks, but this new development seems to have been stalled by the economy. Needless to say it is just really quite the community with tons of tennis and basketball courts, and a nice Olympic pool in the middle. The picture below is from the official website.

The one that Jenn liked the best and for me was tied for first with another was a 3 story town house called San Carlos that ran for the mid-400's, which is a ton for a 3 story town house however in the OC its a lot less then a year or two ago where the same house would have gone for 500,000. Not to mention the fact that we could probably knock it down to the low 4's or high 3's which would be much more affordable. Needless to say the townhouse was great. At first three floors seemed intimidating but if you walk this house it really helps make a little over 1,000 square footage feel much larger.

I am going to throw the rest of the pictures from the adventure on Flickr later, so you can see all of my iPhone goodness and our great adventure in Portola springs. If our plans stay the same for a wedding in the next year then that would mean this may be somewhere we look outside of renting an apartment to buy a home. How crazy would that be, to be a homeowner in a years time? I guess we can only pray on it and take things as they come. Whatever the case looking at houses and the future is always a lot of fun.

UPDATE:

I did post the pictures on Flickr. Go here to check out all the model home goodness.