Certified professional organizer Jodie Watson says that when she is hired to help bring order to a cluttered home, she can make one small change that will dramatically alter a family's daily life.

She helps the family clear off the dining room table. All the backpacks and craft projects and papers are moved elsewhere.

"I put down a runner, and that one little thing can transform them from being scattered around the home eating or pulling out tray tables in front of the TV to having a family meal together," the Sherman Oaks-based organizer says. "The clutter is squeezing the family out of their...

In the old-money-obsessed 1980s, Mario Buatta was one of the go-to designers for the rich and famous. His love of English country decorating and glossy floral fabrics earned him the title “The Prince of Chintz.”

Buatta's luxurious interiors, with silver-leafed ceilings, glazed walls, patterned carpets, ornate antiques, elaborate draperies and all that flowery fabric, may read as blue blood indulgences today, but his skill at mixing colors, patterns and prints has influenced contemporary California decorators who attempt a similar layered look with ethnic accents and modern...

Illustrator Betsy Everitt and water utility executive Christopher Schilling were Americans working in London when he landed a new job in Southern California. With two college-bound children, they began thinking about how they could pare down and simplify. So in 2009 they bought a dark, dilapidated ranch house in Brentwood, hoping to remake it into a streamlined haven of light and space.

The couple loved their one-story house's pitched roof and high exposed-beam living-room ceiling and exposed-brick living room wall. But the rest of the 1953 building was structurally unsound and stylistically...

Staged in an empty warehouse in downtown Los Angeles and packed with handmade wares, the Parachute Market is a welcome respite from larger design fairs. Patrons can meet more than 40 designers while shopping for locally produced goods. 

Returning vendors to the third market include Echo Park furniture and lighting designer Brendan Ravenhill, textile and furniture duo Brook

Connecting to the earth is a kind of therapy for many gardeners and in some cases serves as inspiration outside the garden. 

"I love to garden," says singer Weba Garretson of her Echo Park backyard. "It gives me sanity to be in the yard."

As a performer Garretson has covered everything from punk rock to Kurt Weill. Recently Garretson began writing daily poems about what was happening in her yard, home to several vegetable gardens, skunks, possums, hawks, cats, tortoises and hummingbirds. "The poems are about what’s thriving, and what’s not," she said. "One could be about our cats...

Visitors to the Los Angeles Fibershed opening Saturday found themselves surrounded by more than just a surplus of handmade goods crafted from locally sourced fibers.

The two-week pop-up is more of a happening than a show, demonstrated by the members of the Spinning Guild who were on hand to spin, shown above, while curious onlookers touched and felt their way around a room filled with soft bundles of fleece, delicate pine needle baskets and felted alpaca carpets.

Hand-knitted tops by Amabelle Aguiluz were installed like artworks throughout the temporary space, now home to the Los Angeles...

It's been so long since Los Angeles suffered a major earthquake -- the magnitude 6.7 Northridge quake was 20 years ago in January -- that it's been easy to put disaster preparedness on a back burner.

But Monday's 6:25 a.m. jolt was a strong reminder that earthquakes are not an "if" but a "when" in Southern California.

Luckily, there are things you can do to help protect your home and family. Many are easy DIY projects -- relocate heavy mirrors and wall hangings away from sleeping areas, install latches on cupboards where glass and ceramics are stored, anchor valuable keepsakes with adhesive or...

The safety of family members is the first concern for most people during and after a major earthquake. For many of us, family also means our family pets.

Monday's magnitude 4.4 earthquake in Los Angeles was a good reminder to be prepared with an earthquake plan and emergency kits. If you're a pet owner, you should also include your animals in your disaster planning.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles offers earthquake preparedness tips for pet owners. 

First, it suggests getting dogs and cats microchipped and outfitted with current ID tags to enable easy...

There's nothing quite like an early-morning jolt to bring home the need for an up-to-date earthquake survival kit. This morning's magnitude 4.4 earthquake was a good reminder for Southern Californians that they need to be prepared.

What should you have in your earthquake emergency kit? The essentials include a flashlight, a portable radio and a first-aid kit. And of course you need instant, dry and canned food (and a can opener) and plenty of water. And don't forget blankets, extra clothing and sturdy shoes, as well as personal hygiene items.

You'll also want a stash of batteries, spare...

 A sliver of a yard can be a powerful thing. Materials & Applications has proved this time and again by collaborating with architects to put up fantastical creations on a 25-by-40-foot gravel yard fronting Silver Lake Boulevard.

Past double-take-worthy installations include a golden-leafed Mylar canopy in the shape of a black hole by Ball-Nogues Studio, a motorized vegetative cover that opens and refolds like origami by Eddie Sykes and a sinuous, fire-shaped gazebo made of pressure-laminated panels by Edmund Ming-Yip Kwong. The installations turned the M&A yard into a local landmark — a...

"I felt a creative spirit the first time I walked in this house," says Rina Welles of the 1921 Santa Monica house that was once home to renowned German playwright Bertolt Brecht. "I liked the energy."

The foursquare house was where Brecht penned "The Caucasian Chalk Circle" and other plays during the 1940s. Today the house is one component in a multigenerational family compound for Welles, husband David Golubchik, her mother, Joanna, and their children, Leah, 10, and Alek, 6.

The home, which has been renovated and complemented by a new addition by Dub Studios, also stands as a success story...