Furniture

Martin Luther King Jr., she admits, looked a little funny at first. His head was too big, his cheekbones were too low, his eyes were kind of lopsided. And his lower lip? "Let's not even go there," Karen Collins, 60, said with a laugh. Photos: Karen Collins' shadow boxes On her third try, she finally got him just right. Her pint-size creations fill nearly every inch of her living room in Compton. On her carpet slaves in chains await their transatlantic voyage.

When you think of the Southern California's arts and crafts movement, you probably think of Pasadena, home to architects Charles and Henry Greene and tile maker Ernest Batchelder. But don't overlook the small community of Garvanza just to the southwest of Pasadena in Highland Park. This unassuming neighborhood, named for the garbanzo beans that once covered its hills, also played a vital role in the craftsman craze of the early 1900s. A group of artisans known as the Arroyo Guild plunked down their creative roots and joined together there to design and build "useful things of superlative excellence and beauty.

It's noon on a warm July day, and filmmaker Will Gluck is worried that he's become a cliché. The 39-year-old writer-director behind the new romantic comedy "Friends With Benefits," starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis, is wondering whether he should have hung a framed poster for the 1948 Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn movie "State of the Union" in his sparsely furnished new office at Sony Pictures. The poster, a gift from Kunis, is a bit of a gag, Gluck says — the actress knows how much the boyish-looking New York native detests Hollywood-types who display old movie posters in their offices.

I figured we'd learned our lessons last spring, when I showed up to retrieve my daughter from her dormitory at San Francisco State and she greeted me sleepy-eyed, in pajamas; not packed and not prepared. It took us two days of stuffing, sweeping, hauling and tossing. We were part of a zombie-like procession of frustrated parents and clueless freshmen on the endless loop between car and dorm. This year, it would be easier, I thought, as I packed my car with empty boxes and bins for the six-hour drive north from Los Angeles.

One in a series of occasional articles. The streets around John Sandberg's furniture factory are dotted with the shuttered shells of manufacturers that have closed down or left town. But the Sandberg family, woodworkers for four generations, has found ways to keep Vernon-based Sandberg Furniture Co. going despite foreign competition, the nation's stiffest environmental laws and the housing industry collapse. For one of the state's oldest furniture manufacturers, a maker of moderately priced bedroom furniture, survival is a matter of adaptability, Chief Executive John Sandberg said.

The Milan furniture fair, the design frenzy that dwarfs this city's famed fashion week in size, opened its 50th exhibition this week, and the event that in 1961 drew 12,100 people likely will close on Sunday having surpassed the 2010 total of 329,600. The masses are still zigzagging through a maze that is three times larger than all four halls of the Los Angeles Convention Center combined. Furniture covers 2,265,803 square feet, the equivalent of 39 football fields. That's 482 pro basketball courts.

She was elderly and alone, injured and in pain. When the massive earthquake struck, a heavy bookshelf toppled onto Hiroko Yamashita, pinning her down and shattering her ankle. When paramedics finally reached her, agonizing hours later, Yamashita did what she said any "normal" person would do, her son-in-law recounted later: She apologized to them for the inconvenience, and asked if there weren't others they should be attending to first. The worst earthquake in Japan's recorded history left a trail of blazing buildings, inundated coastal communities, wrecked roadways and potentially unstable nuclear power plants.

A Rancho Cucamonga furniture company owner was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, federal officials said Tuesday. Rick M. Vartanian, 57, of Ladera Ranch had been convicted of obstruction of justice and employing illegal immigrants at his company, Brownwood Furniture. Along with the prison sentence, U.S. District Judge Gary Fees on Monday ordered Vartanian to pay a $15,000 fine. In November 2009, officials said, Vartanian told investigators with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that unauthorized workers identified during an earlier audit were no longer employed by the company.

Egypt is captivating America. It has for more than a century. Just look at this room fit for a pharaoh and built by a mogul in Altadena. After the Civil War, the country roared to global prominence with manufacturing wealth and a lot of showing off by the rich. One of the flashier men at the top was the cofounder of the Rand McNally map company, Andrew McNally. In 1880, he rolled into town from the Midwest and later picked up 15 acres along Mariposa Street. He lured his friends to adjoining luxury lots and made it a millionaires' row. By East Coast standards, Mariposa was a country lane.

Dexus Property Group said Thursday that it had bought the massive headquarters of furniture retailer Living Spaces in La Mirada for $26.25 million. Living Spaces uses the 278,000-square-foot building as a warehouse and retail sales center for its line of furniture and other home items. It is one of seven stores operated by the regional company and also houses the company's executive offices. Dexus didn't reveal the name of the seller, but real estate data provider CoStar Group identified the previous owner as LBA Realty of Irvine.