Home tour: Expanding a little bit at a time in Atwater

This story begins nine years ago when architect Rebecca Rudolph and her designer-builder husband, Colin Thompson, bought a cottage in Atwater Village. It was cheap ($139,000) and tiny (500 square feet). Someone else might have seen a tear down, but they saw opportunity for a modest expansion.

First came a stylish 300-square-foot detached office, followed by a remodel that more than doubled the size of the house while keeping most of the yard intact. The result is a swoon-worthy home filled with lots of fresh ideas -- a wall of salvaged wood fencing in the living room, a translucent curtain that blocks UV rays but not the view, plus low-water landscaping and a green roof.

To read more about the house check out Lisa Boone's story, or click through a photo gallery of the home.

-- Deborah Netburn

Photos clockwise from top right: Rebecca Rudolph pulls a curtain that blocks UV rays; Colin Thompson waters the roof; the couple's daughter Rei Thompson watches television in the living room. Photo credit: Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times

Architect Aaron Neubert's cozy indoor-outdoor family home in Silver Lake

It's always interesting to see what architects design for themselves or, in Aaron Neubert's case, his family. Although being his own architect was a "conflicted" process, his goal remained consistent: creating an open living environment that connected to the outdoors at every opportunity.

To make the interiors of his Silver Lake home feel larger, Neubert organized the spaces around what he calls a “vertical pinwheel” central stairwell, shown in the photograph above. “This allows all the rooms to open to each other with almost no hallway circulation,” he says. The stairs also work as a screen, differentiating rooms in an otherwise open space.

Here, Neubert romps with Checkers outside the third-floor master bedroom while wife Stacy Horth-Neubert, son Penn, 4, and daughter Quinn, 7, hang out below. For two years, while juggling work for clients, he constructed an open yet cozy family home in which every room is connected to the landscape outside. “It's all about the yard," he says. "I wanted the kids to have a jungle.”

You can take a tour through our 17-image photo gallery.

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credit: Ann Johansson / For The Times

A leaf that wins the battle against the wind

This nifty green maple leaf is a wonderfully functional doorstop -- and a vast improvement over those ugly brown rubber wedges or big rocks we’ve been using for years.

I spotted Loose Leaf recently at Pot-ted on Los Feliz Boulevard in Atwater Village, a shop that never disappoints when it comes to cool, affordable garden and home items. The 6- by 7-inch deciduous doorstop is $12.50 and looks like it wafted out of the sky to land on my front porch. I slid the edge underneath the door and left the stem sticking out. It does the trick perfectly.

Loose Leaf is a product of Fred and Friends, a wacky Rhode Island-based design firm. Check out their other tongue-in-cheek kitchen, home and bath items -- things you don’t really need but will want to have anyway -- at the Fred and Friends website. 

--Debra Prinzing

The Deal: Just in time for holiday guests: 15% off tepee kits from Earthworks

We all know what a strain it can be finding space for out-of-town guests during the holidays.

Have you considered the backyard tepee option?

Through Nov. 25, Colorado Yurt Co. is offering 15% off the already discounted Earthworks Basic Tipi Value Package. For $462 and up, you'll get everything you need (but the poles) to pitch a 12-foot tepee, including detailed instructions on how to tie a clove hitch knot. Poles ($197 to $1,097) are sold separately.

A sales representative for Colorado Yurt Co. recommended the 16-foot version ($654)  for two adults (your in-laws perhaps?) and the 14-footer for kids ($562).

Asked about assembly, she responded, “It’ll be easier the second time you do it.”

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credit: Colorado Yurt Co.

Decorating ideas from a pro party house (or two)

How's this for a sign of a successful remodel: Friends want to throw parties at your home.

Sherry Walsh, a former fashion designer, and husband Miguel Nelson, an artist, took those requests and turned them into a business, renting out two spaces for parties, weddings and more -- venues with unusual designs that do-it-yourselfers will want to steal.

The first, a free-flowing indoor-outdoor space they call Marvimon, had been auto showroom. That's it pictured above, with the couple's Woolly Pockets creating a vertical garden along one wall. Walsh and Nelson's second venue, SmogShoppe, is a former smog-check station in Culver City.

Both spaces are loaded with ideas: tables stained with coffee grounds, bookshelves wrapped in metal mesh, glazed brick used instead of tile, old doors lined up to form wall paneling. Check out our 19-image photo gallery here.

-- Jan Molen

Photo credits: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times

The Deal: Jackalope discounts all indoor and outdoor furnishings by 30% through Monday

The ambience at Jackalope is so laid back, you will find its subtle charms working on you as you shop. Walk past the softly gurgling water fountains on the patio, for instance, and you'll begin to think that you really must have one. The North Hollywood garden and home furnishings store is jammed with items that will catch your eye: ceramic planters, rugs, handmade furniture and decorative pieces. But the reason to keep going back is the reasonable pricing.

Today through Monday, Jackalope will be even more affordable. Look for 30% discounts on everything inside and outside. Ceramic pots that normally range from $20 to $1,500 (for a 5-foot-high container), folk art that's  $8 to $36 -- they're all on sale. The sale excludes selected furniture (bookcases, consoles and more) that's already marked down 50%.

Jackalope is open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 10726 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood; (818) 761-4022.

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credit: Jackalope

The Deal: $200 off Botanist designs through Nov. 2

 

The Botanist series of benches, cocktail tables and nesting end tables from L.A.’s Orange22 Design Lab pairs a minimalist silhouette with the finishing touches of 11 noted designers. Each item begins as a single piece of aluminum, which is precisely cut, bent and faced with a high-impact powder coat or a wood veneer covered in epoxy. The sleek forms are then refined with color and graphics by artists such as Milton Glaser, Karim Rashid and Dario Antonioni.

This month, Orange22 is offering $200 off any Botanist product. Just enter the code: HALLOWEEN200 during checkout or call (877) ECO-FLOW. Two percent of the proceeds go to the artists' charities of choice. Margo Chase’s Flight pattern shown above (with prices ranging from $690 for an end table to $1,214 for a cocktail table, after the discount) will benefit the Sierra Club. The sale ends Nov. 2. For more designs, click here.

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credit: Orange22 Design Lab

The Deal: Pottery Barn's sale on outdoor Sunbrella chaise cushions will make you forget it's fall

I’ve never been one to buy discounted ornaments the day after Christmas. But these summery chaise cushions from Pottery Barn are such a great deal -- reduced from $249 to $49.99 each -- they’re making me forget it’s fall.

The colorful cushions are covered in water-repellent, fade-resistant Sunbrella fabric and come in a range of bright solids, stripes and patterns. Although the single-chaise cushions are sold out, several 53-inch-wide double cushions like the one shown here are still available. The sale is Internet only and purchases cannot be returned. But at these prices, you might consider buying now and saving them for next year. Shipping actually costs more than the cushions -- a penny more, to be exact.

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credit: Pottery Barn

Datebook: AIA home tour highlights architecture in Manhattan Beach

The American Institute of Architects, Los Angeles, home tours are always a great opportunity to experience cutting-edge architecture in an intimate way. They also provide a chance for you to pocket creative ideas for your own home -- be it landscaping or surfboard storage -- in the process.

See what some of L.A.'s most innovative architects are up to during the self-guided home tour "A Day in Manhattan (Beach)," planned for Oct. 4. Architect Grant Kirkpatrick and interior designer Shaya Kirkpatrick's sunny "Tree House," which was profiled in Home last November, will be among the four contemporary homes open to the public. The tour also will feature homes by Michael Lee of Michael Lee Architects, James Meyer of  LeanArch and Jess Mullen-Carey & William Beauter of Make Architecture.

The homes are located within a one-mile radius of one another. Tickets are $65 for AIA members and $75 for non-members.

For a look at the other homes, go to the jump.

Anna Wintour rules Vogue from a bistro chair

Here's a myth buster: In "The September Issue," R.J. Cutler's documentary about Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour, it is revealed that she sits in a common metal bistro chair. (I'd expected a seat with Chanel-style diamond quilted leather.)

At least the British fashion queen, who also displays Clarice Cliff ceramics on her desk, has chosen a design classic for her throne. It's Xavier Pauchard's 1934 Chaise A, an indoor-outdoor chair still produced by the original manufacturer, Tolix, in Burgundy, France. 

You can get your own for $245 at Sundance Catalog. They're $195 each if you buy six; a white version is only $150. Want it in red or orange? That'll be $275 a pop at the Conran Shop.

-- David A. Keeps

Photo credits: "The September Issue" and Sundance Catalog