We stayed one night in Melinda's cottage and thoroughly loved being able to walk through the neighborhood to Venice Beach, have a meal at Cafe Gratitude, walk two blocks for great coffee in the morning, and have Whole Foods just around the corner. Her cottage is small but beautifully designed and decorated and very clean. The bed was comfy and the shower wonderful. We didn't use the kitchen but it was very well provisioned, and we enjoyed the private back yard.
Melinda gave us very good directions to find her place and made it smooth and easy for us to get a key to access the property at any time, and to return the key without waiting for her to meet us. The fenced and locked yard felt very secure and was much appreciated.
The only negatives were needing to find another parking place for our car early Tuesday morning, as Monday and Tuesday are street sweeping days. Also, it was not really quiet until after 11 PM, since there was someone walking right past the cottage to access a storage spot that shares a wall with the cottage, which woke us every time they clattered about, perhaps 4 or 5 times within 2 hours. Also, it was very warm so we tried the air conditioner unit, but it was impossible to sleep with the racket it produced, so we opted to sleep with windows open.