Summer style: Outdoor chairs that strike a chord

We're calling them airy chairs: outdoor seats whose wire or cord construction makes for an easy, breezy sensibility — the it look of summer, light in silhouette but not on style. We've chosen a sampling of chairs in a range of prices. Higher-end designs tend to have more refinements: Ligne Roset’s Fifty chair and ottoman, pictured here, has a steel frame that has been treated to protect against corrosion and lacquered in polyester so it’s cool to touch (no sear marks on thighs, thank you very much). Nearly 1,150 feet of UV-resistant polypropylene rope are strung into a cool silhouette that  cocoons you in comfort. The Ligne Roset chair retails for $1,435, the ottoman for $525, but we have some other picks that are as much a comfort to your wallet as they are to your back and feet.

Mosquito traps and repellents: Gear to take the bite out of summer

The most lethal predator in the world is a female that lives only a few weeks, hunts by following plumes of carbon dioxide and thinks the smell of decaying bacteria is delicious. “Mosquitoes cause 1 to 2 million deaths a year,” said Ray Anandasankar, an assistant professor in UC Riverside's entomology department. “It's a human-finding guided missile.”

The 176 mosquito species in the U.S. are more of a pest than a lethal threat, but when it feels like every single one has congregated in your backyard to join you for dinner, the need for solutions remains great.

A bevy of new products purport to keep mosquitoes away without having to slather repellent on your skin. The designs come in different forms — fans, misters, lanterns and more — but ultimately they fall into two categories: traps and repellents. How do they work? More important, do they work?

Outdoor beds: Dream designs for an afternoon nap

First we had the outdoor living and dining rooms. Then came the outdoor kitchen. Was the outdoor bedroom inevitable?

We started to report on cabanarama — how the shaded huts so popular at hotel pools were moving full force to the home — when it became clear that so much of the furniture for these backyard retreats were essentially outdoor beds. Take a look and ask yourself: Doesn't an afternoon nap sound good right about now?

Dedon recently released images of its Swingrest, pictured here, a veritable backyard nest to be released in 2013. The suspended bed will have a rotating Corian side table and optional curtain for privacy.

To see what's on the market now, at prices from $400 to $20,000, keep reading ...

 

Patio umbrellas for summer: We're seeing a pattern

Patio umbrellas are available in nearly every conceivable color, but what if you’re looking for a distinctive pattern or print? We scouted some of the newest designs on the market and found that whether your look is a bold stripe, a refined damask or modern Scandinavian graphics, these textiles can be less about shade and more about fun. Take a look:

Dwell on Design 2012: Modern fun this weekend

It's time to play: Dwell on Design, the annual expo of furniture, fixtures and finishes for the modern home and garden, is running this weekend at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Staff writer Lisa Boone and producer Dianne de Guzman walked the convention floor on Friday to get some early impressions.

They found Misha Tome sliding down the Cuba playhouse by Play Modern, above. The modular system consists of cubes that can be configured in different ways. Indoor models are made from Baltic birch plywood with a clear finish, and outdoor models are made from marine-grade plywood with a dark finish.

MORE PICKS: Dwell on Design 2012

Above right: Lori Erenberg, left, and Saehee Simmons looked at color samples for Kohler's new sinks in a range of bold hues.

Below right: The BeSpoke Creative console throws some curves, with a sleek white exterior complemented by maple and birch plywood interior.

Malibu modern: New house makes most of every inch, every view

You could admire the ocean view from the second-floor deck — coastal bluffs covered with wind-sculpted cypress trees to your right, pretty Point Dume off in the distance to your left, 10 miles of prime Malibu beach in between.

Or you could admire the architecture from the street below, looking up at a first floor that juts out from a cliff and hovers over nothingness.

Or you could contemplate the house from the front, where the weathered redwood siding turns out to be planks recycled from olive and pickle tanks.

You could do all of that, but then you might miss part of what makes this house special. This dream of a retreat — set along exclusive Broad Beach, among the mansions that Steven Spielberg, Robert Redford, Goldie Hawn and Steve Levitan have called home — holds smart design ideas that could translate to houses that are miles and miles away, in geography, budget or style.

PANORAMAS: Interactive 360-degree images from inside this house

After all, on paper this house is merely 1,700 square feet of living space: open kitchen and living room, powder room, small office and guest bedroom with bath on the first floor, master suite on the second. That's it.

But as conceived by the young Los Angeles firm W+D, this Malibu house plays out as a case study in the efficient use of space. Wedged next to noisy Pacific Coast Highway and set snugly between neighbors, the house also is inspiration for anyone trying to balance a love of the outdoors with the need for quiet and privacy.

Rapson rocker reissued by Loll in recycled plastic

Toby Rapson, son of midcentury architect Ralph Rapson, was working to put his father's classic designs back into production when he bumped into Loll designer and Chief Executive Greg Benson, whose company specializes in furniture made of recycled plastic. The meeting prompted Rapson to rethink his father's rocking chair as an eco-friendly outdoor rocker made from material.

"It became a collaboration between us and Loll to translate the chairs Ralph Rapson drew [pictured at right], to a new innovative  project," Rapson-Inc. President Chris Reedy said.

Rapson-Inc. reissued the modern Rapid Rocker at the end of last year and partnered with retailer YLiving to reintroduce the Rapson Greenbelt line of chairs. The 1939 Greenbelt rocker, pictured on the left at the top of the post, is $1,845 and was originally designed for manufacturer Knoll.

Prototypes of the high-backed armless Rapson Rocker for Loll ($999), pictured at top right, and low-back Rapson lounge chair with arms ($1,099), pictured at the end of this post, were showcased last month at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York and will be on display at the Dwell on Design show in Los Angeles this weekend. As with all of Loll's designs, the pieces are made from 100% recycled plastic.

Bubbletecture: Step inside CasaBubble and Airclad inflatables

A pair of exhibitors at next weekend's Dwell on Design show will have a new take on living in a bubble. AirClad, a British company that makes an inflatable pool house, and CasaBubble, a California firm that designs pneumatic backyard guest rooms, are trying to capitalize on the outdoor-living and small-space trends with structures built using little more than lightweight PVC and air.

“The idea was to be able to spend the night under the starry sky as comfortably as in a hotel bedroom,” said Frederic Richard, a native of France who splits his time between Paris and Santa Ynez, where he began distributing CasaBubble in April.

CasaBubble, pictured at right, is a sphere that holds its shape with air blown by quiet turbines, which use less than 100 watts of electricity per hour to run — roughly the equivalent of a light bulb. The sphere is fully pressurized in as little as 15 minutes, and the air inside is refreshed as often as seven times per hour, preventing humidity and condensation from clouding the bubble. The design has two doors, but only one can be open at a time or the structure will collapse.

CasaBubble was designed by Frenchman Pierre-Stephane Dumas and is manufactured in France. The portable living space is designed to be used as an outdoor guest room, a dining room, a children's play area or a pop-up shelter at the beach. It's available in 30 colors and five sizes, weighing 53 to 190 pounds.

Instant ambience: Outdoor candlelight and bonfire log

Mood makers for your patio, deck or balcony, clockwise from center: The Light ’n Go Bonfire Log is kiln-dried birch with an internal wick that promises to deliver a big flame for at least two hours. (Fire alarms in our photo studio persuaded us to keep ours unlighted, so it's pictured with a tea light on top.) The log is $12.98 at Home Depot, where it can be found with the firewood. A spokeswoman for the company that makes the Light 'n Go said it's also sold at some Albertsons stores, among other places.

Stuck into the log are three cast-iron Pipe candle holders by Menu, $35 apiece from A+R. The gray, patterned Orla hurricane ($19.95) and votive ($9.95) candle holders are from Crate & Barrel. The bottle-shaped mercury glass candle holder is $34.95 at the Juicy Leaf. The beeswax candles shaped like apothecary bottles are $11.25 and $15.75 at Firefly, which carries larger sizes too.

The large oval oil lamp looks like terrazzo but is lightweight resin; it's $19.95 at CB2. A small candle wrapped in birch bark was $10 at Colcha, which has the candles in a larger size.

ALSO:

Long Beach's hot spot: Bixby Knolls

Highland Park's emerging shopping scene

South Coast Collection: cool in Costa Mesa

Uptown Design District, Palm Springs' shop central

-- L.A. at Home staff writers

Photo: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times

 

Venice home tour: A weekend blitz of modern design

The Venice Garden & Home Tour is one of the biggest events on L.A.'s house-snooping calendar, a self-guided walking tour of 30 properties including, this year, the Gregory Ain tract -- an architecturally significant 1947 enclave of modest one-story homes by one of the city's iconic modernists.

Homes will be open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. If you haven't yet bought a ticket, you can get it for $70 on the day of the tour at 804 Broadway, Venice. Proceeds benefit the Neighborhood Youth Assn.'s Las Doradas Children's Center. Information: (310) 821-1857, www.venicegardentour.org.

Stops on the tour this year include a renovated bungalow with a large indoor-outdoor living room addition, right. A wooden footbridge spans the lap pool between the two structures. The landscape was designed by Rob Jones of Jones and Potak.

Keep reading for a look at some of the other houses on the tour ...