Every Monday, we post a recently built, remodeled or redecorated home with commentary from the designer. This week, we focus on a home in Mar Vista that is actually two houses joined together. 

Project: kitchen remodel, second phase of multiroom and patio remodel.

Location: Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Designer and contractor: John Gibson, John Gibson Design & Build, Venice. (213) 445-2611.

Goal: to create an airy, modern kitchen that matched earlier remodel work and furthered the effort to make the home lighter and more architecturally coherent.

Builder’s description: This house consists of two 1920s houses awkwardly joined together in the mid-1960s. When current work first began, it was a mess. Except for the living room, which has period details including a curved ceiling and a bank of leaded-glass windows, the neglected interior was stuffy and dark, with a low ceiling. A generously sized courtyard between the front and rear sections of the home was surrounded by trees, including a towering Aleppo pine, but the outdoor space was split into four levels and cut off from the interior by ugly doors.

Because of budget constraints, remodeling had to be done in phases. The first phase included raising the ceiling in the dining room and installing two skylights and a large dormer window that would frame the courtyard tree. It sounded straightforward, but when we opened the roof to put in the skylight, we found a jumble of angles and roof lines. I tried to take what I found and turn it into an asset rather than a liability. I incorporated the angles into the design, and the ceiling became far more interesting as a result.

The second phase was modernizing and enlarging a funky old kitchen, above right, as well as a service porch and tiny guest bath. The service porch and bath had blocked access to the yard. I combined them and moved them forward, to an area overlooking the driveway. A pocket door closes off this area, creating a hallway between kitchen and living room. I lined it with floor-to-ceiling cabinets, badly needed for storage.

The kitchen now opens to the courtyard, now just two levels. We tripled the deck in size, making a barbecue and eating area just off the kitchen. The house now has five sets of matching doors, all opening onto the courtyard and unifying the two houses into a single home.

To see more, keep reading ...

This morning Kartell begins discounting its contemporary plastic furniture by 15% during a storewide sale running through Saturday.

Everything -- chairs, tables, lighting and accessories including pieces by designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Piero Lissoni and Marcel Wanders -- will be reduced. The sale will also include the new Magic Hole collection of outdoor furniture designed by Philippe Starck with Eugeni Quitllet; as shown above, the hollow curves of the arms can be used as magazine holders. The sofa, regularly $899, will be $764.15; the chair, regularly $630, will be $535.50.

The sale applies to Kartell's showrooms in Los Angeles, New York, Boston and Miami. The Los Angeles showroom is at 313 N. Robertson Blvd.; (310) 271-0178.

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-- Lisa Boone

Photo: Kartell

We've listed select home and garden events below. Suggest your own via reader comments. Submissions must be fewer than 75 words and must be for one-time events with legitimate value to other readers. No store promotions and no frivolous links, please. L.A. at Home staff will determine which submissions will be made public.

July 12: The Aaron Nigel Trio performs as part of Descanso Gardens’ Summer Family Series. Bring a picnic (usually not allowed in the gardens). 5:30 to 7 p.m. Included in garden admission of $3 to $8. Open until 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays through Aug. 25. 1418 Descanso Drive, La Cañada Flintridge. (818) 949-4200.

July 14-17: Designers, architects, filmmakers and educational institutions explore the “New Urban Lifestyle” as part of "Little Tokyo Design Week: Future City." The free festival will include a series of museum exhibitions, student installations, public happenings and temporary galleries in the form of shipping containers placed throughout the public plazas of Little Tokyo. Information: www.LTDesignWeek.com.

July 14: Virginia Hayes, curator of living collections at Lotusland in Santa Barbara, presents the lecture “The Cultural and Natural History of Lotuses.” 2:30 p.m. Free. No reservations required. Friends’ Hall, Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. (626) 405-2100.

July 14: Sammy Miller performs in conjunction with Descanso Gardens' summer Jazz Evenings. 5:30 to 7 p.m. Thursdays through Aug. 25. Included in garden admission of $3 to $8. 1418 Descanso Drive, La Cañada Flintridge. (818) 949-4200.

July 16:  Steve Gerischer teaches how create planters from hypertufa, an artificial medium with absorbent properties similar to tufa rock. 10 a.m. to noon. $30 to $35 (includes materials). Ayres Hall area, Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden, 301 N. Baldwin Ave., Arcadia. Registration: (626) 821-4623.

July 16: In celebration of what would have been John Lautner’s 100th birthday, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art hosts an exhibition that includes an archival model and photographs of Lautner’s Goldstein Office. Through July 24. Free. LACMA’s Art Catalogues Bookstore, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. (323) 857-6000.

July 16: A panel of architects and critics, including Michael Rotondi, Craig Hodgetts and Sylvia Lavin, will look at John Lautner’s work. The discussion will be followed by a conversation on architectural preservation featuring Frank Preusser, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s conservation scientist, and Christopher Carr, vice president of the John Lautner Foundation. Panel discussion starts at 2 p.m. Admission is free, but tickets are required; they’re available starting one hour prior to the program. Reception follows at 4:30 p.m. Brown Auditorium, Los Angeles Country Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. (323) 857-6000.

July 16: Descanso Gardens curator Wen Wang offers an intensive training session on all aspects of plant cultivation. Learn the science behind plants, including their light, water and nutritional needs. 9:30 a.m. $3 to $50. 148 Descanso Drive, La Cañada Flintridge. (818) 949-4200.

July 16: Horticulturist Lili Singer leads a class on the basics on gardening with California flora, covering planting techniques, irrigation and maintenance. 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Theodore Payne Foundation for Wildflowers and Native Plants, 10459 Tuxford St., Sun Valley. $40 to $50. (818) 768-1802.

Last week we ran down the 10 most popular photo galleries from the first half of 2011. This week we offer five overlooked picks -- galleries that you may have missed the first time around. We love them for different reasons and think you might too.

1. Mosaic folly. Vintage salt and pepper shakers flavor the fireplace and ceramic fish flop from the outdoor shower. In the bungalow of two Silver Lake artists, anything goes. Full gallery. Credit: R. Daniel Foster

2. DIY fire pit. Mom Ilse Ackerman builds her own backyard fire pit using earth bags. The result is a whimsical, hot pink creation that proves a hit during a kids party. Full gallery. Credit: Meeno Peluce

3. Small space made modern. Landscape designer Elizabeth Low invited us to see the surprises in her garden -- the outdoor living rooms carved out on a modest-sized lot, the sustainable plantings, the surprising use of artificial turf. But we were equally taken with how Low and her husband had turned their 900-square-foot house into a fresh indoor-outdoor space. Full gallery. Credit: Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times

4. Water-wise wonder. Looking at Frank Pasker and Grit Leipert's house in Mount Washington many might simply admire the view. But hidden from sight is a water-saving system that stores rainwater underground and recycles laundry and shower water for use as garden irrigation. Full gallery. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times

5. Top furniture trends. In a spectacle that dwarfs Milan's famed fashion week, the world's top furniture designers and manufacturers gather in Italy every April to premiere looks headed for stores in late 2011 and 2012. Our report from the scene has been one of the most viewed galleries this year, but because it's not a home profile we kept it from last week's top 10 list. Full gallery. Credit: Kristina Hrabetova

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Our latest home profile: Rachel Ashwell's "Shabby Shack" in Malibu

It's a different Rachel Ashwell for different times. The founder of the Shabby Chic empire lost her stores, her muse and her house during the recession. But now she's back, reviving her celebration of beautiful imperfection in her latest home, a rough-around-the-edges Malibu rental that she dubbed her Shabby Shack. Writer Barbara Thornburg pays a visit and finds a resilient designer whose new credo certainly resonates in tough times: Make do without settling.

ARTICLE: Rachel, reinvented

TIPS: Ashwell's flea market strategies

PHOTOS: Inside the easy, breezy Malibu house

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Photo, top: Rachel Ashwell arranges flowers at a table fashioned from reclaimed oak.

Photo, bottom: The house, including its saltillo tiles, may not be perfect. But it is filled with classic Ashwell moments -- not to mention breathtaking views.

Credit: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

For adult children trying to provide good care for an elderly parent, Rosemary McClure's tale reads like a nightmare:

My friend's phone call numbed me. Twice in the last week, she said, she’d seen my mother sitting in a car in a neighborhood near her home. “Today she was there for more than two hours in the heat,” she added. My stomach churned.

Mom suffered from dementia; she could no longer drive, or even speak coherently most of the time. She hadn't gotten to the area my friend was talking about on her own. It had to be Ann, her caregiver, who had been “taking her to the park” almost daily. The next day I skipped work and followed. When she parked in front of a house, I waited 20 minutes and then went to the door. Ann's boyfriend appeared when I rang the bell.

“Tell her she's fired,” I said.

You can read the rest of McClure's story in her the latest It's All Relative column on caring for and staying connecting with aging parents.

Illustration credit: Blair Thornley / For The Times

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  Plastic credit and debit cards are often made from polyvinyl chloride, or PVC No. 3 plastic, which usually is recyclable in L.A.’s blue bin. But L.A. officials recommend that the cards be cut into tiny pieces so that they can’t be pieced together and personal information stolen from them. The cut-up cards should be placed in the black bin, not recycled.

For consumers’ protection, the L.A. Bureau of Sanitation recommends that they check with the issuing agency for guidelines on disposing of credit and debit cards.

Used gift cards made of plastic, paper and poly-coated paper don't contain personal data, however, and can be recyclable through L.A.’s blue bin.

Earthworks System in Ohio is a PVC-recycling company that lets customers mail in old plastic cards, including driver’s licenses. If the cards contain sensitive information, they should first be cut up well. The cards are then ground up and recycled into new plastic cards.

Because policies and recommendations vary from city to city, each week we ask a sampling of officials from various municipalities to weigh in. Keep reading to find out whether you can recycle plastic credit and debit cards in …

Burbank: Not curbside. They can be placed in the mixed plastic bins at the Burbank Recycle Center.

Culver City: No

Glendale: No

Irvine: Only if whole, which is not recommended

Long Beach: No

Los Angeles: No

Riverside: Yes, though not recommended

Santa Ana: Only if whole, which is not recommended

Santa Barbara: No

Santa Monica: No

Torrance: No

Ventura: Yes, though customers are encouraged to cut up the cards first

-- Susan Carpenter

Illustration credit: Stephen Sedam / For The Times

THE FULL SERIES:

Can I recycle packing peanuts, Ziploc bags, milk cartons, wine corks ...

During Room & Board's online clearance sale, selected furniture and accessories are up to 40% off while supplies last.

The Room & Board' sale includes the two-seat sofa by Le Corbusier, above, regularly $4,000, now $2,299.99; the three-seat version, regularly $6,000, is marked down to $3,399.99. Other discounts include the orange-upholstered Monica California king bed, regularly $2,099, now $1,649.99; a modular cabinet in maple and stainless steel, regularly $1,749.99, now $1,499.99; and the York L-shaped sleeper sofa in navy fabric, regularly $3,800, now $3,099.99.

A great selection of decorative pillows in assorted fabrics is disappearing quickly. Regularly $49 to $129, they have been reduced to $29.99 to $89.99. (800) 301-9720.

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credit: Room & Board

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20%-70% off everything at H.D. Buttercup

Unless you are active in the field of urban greening, you probably haven’t heard of North East Trees.

Unlike the better known TreePeople, North East Trees has not seen its founder land on "The Tonight Show."

Rather, the nonprofit that Scott Wilson started in 1989 by planting 700 oaks at Occidental College in Los Angeles' community of Eagle Rock has quietly been planting many more trees (50,000 at last count), working with low-income communities to create parks, and partnering with city and county agencies on water-harvesting projects. North East Trees has been at the cutting edge of L.A.’s ecological makeover.

As Wilson sees it, what sets North East Trees apart is that he was a landscape architect when the group started. He built a staff of foresters, designers and educators with the goal of strategic greening, going far beyond planting a tree streetside and hoping that it lived.

“It’s not about how many trees you plant,” said Wilson, right, during a brief meeting last week in the courtyard of the Department of Public Works in Alhambra (more on that later). “It’s about the right tree in the right place and about how many of those trees live.”

Many of the 35 parks and street plantings done by North East Trees are along the Los Angeles River. Wilson's group is working on the Glendale Narrows Riverwalk, a half-mile pedestrian and bike trail near Griffith Park (a portion is shown at the top of the post). Perhaps you’ve noticed the "Guardians of the River" gate, right, a 1999 North East Trees project by artist Michael Amescua.

And so it goes with another nine mini-parks dotting the banks of the river as it passes Atwater Village, Silver Lake and Glassell Park to downtown.

Last week, this trail of good works led me to the offices of North East Trees in the River Center and Gardens in Cypress Park, where I asked staff members to describe not only their successes but also their failures. In the case of a 20-acre natural area at the Rio de Los Angeles State Park, which had been a remnant of a railroad switching yard in the industrial badlands between Mount Washington and Silver Lake, they experienced both.

Curiosity for Rent: The Osiris Apartments, Westlake

Proclaiming its bond with the Egyptian god of the afterlife, the Osiris Apartments sport a towering sign, its letters studded with bulbs, now darkened.

The 30-unit building in Los Angeles' Westlake neighborhood was built in 1928 by architect J.M. Close, who also designed Hollywood’s Karnak and Ahmed apartments, as well as a 1930 Egyptian-inspired, 20-unit building at 747 Wilcox Ave.

The Osiris, at 430 S. Union Ave., has a colonnaded pylon-style base painted beige and trimmed elegantly in black. The lobby features a Moorish arch painted ochre and patterned with blue eyes called nazars, seen widely in the Middle East and used to ward off the evil eye, a glance believed to cause harm. Other Moorish arches, also painted ochre, are found at stairwell landings.

“J.M. Close had his eye on what would sell -- the latest and the exotic -- and he was astute at picking up on trends,” said Marcello Vavala, preservation associate at the Los Angeles Conservancy. Vavala added that Close’s office on Western Avenue was known for tropical plants and unusual furniture for the time. Close did most of his work from 1910 to 1935, including Spanish Colonial Revivals and a number of Hollywood bungalow courts.

Close’s initials stood for John Manley, but he preferred J.M., Vavala said. The architect’s blueprints were inspired by Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922.  Among other Egyptian revival buildings in Los Angeles: the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, the Vista Theatre on Sunset Boulevard in Los Feliz and the Citadel Outlets, formerly the Samson Tire and Rubber Co., which was modeled after a 7th century B.C. Assyrian palace.

Osiris tenant Howard Scott, 32, thought his building's sign was left over from an old hotel. Perched on the bed of his $598-a-month studio, Scott said the neighborhood is “a bit crowded for my taste, but I won’t live here forever. It’s for the moment.”

Asked about his tattoos, Scott said he got the first at age 18 -- comedy and tragedy masks inked on his right arm after his mother repeatedly told him that he was “overly dramatic.”  The maintenance employee at Fox Fitness in Culver City said he got small angel and devil tattoos on his throat at age 24 -- perhaps appropriate symbols for what it takes to court Osiris, god of the afterlife.

“I got the angel and the devil to remind me that I always have a choice -- to make a good or bad decision,” said Scott, who papered his walls with his sketches of DC and Marvel comics characters: Storm, Firestorm and Phoenix, among others.

Scott raised his hand to his neck. “The angel and devil remind me that right and wrong are here -- right at my throat.”

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-- R. Daniel Foster

"Curiosity for Rent," a series on the novel apartment buildings of Southern California, appears here on Wednesdays (with a bonus second installment today). You can send nominations to daniel@rdanielfoster.com. For an easy way to follow future installments, join our Facebook page for California home design.

Photos:  R. Daniel Foster