Mark Phenicie's Home and Furniture

Mark Phenicie sent pictures of his home, and of furniture he designs and builds.

One day, back in the early 70’s after I had returned home from Traveling Trough France, Italy, Living in North Africa for a year and going through Israel, India, Thailand and living a year in Vietnam as a young Marine, I decided to set out to build some of my own furniture with my own designs. I frankly could not understand why we as Americans who had access to the most sophisticated tools could only turn out what I called “Sears $49.95 junk furniture, whereas in the poor countries they were turning out detailed masterpieces.



Although my furniture was influenced by my exposure to other designs i had come in contact with,it slowly evolved and was not patterned after any particular artist even though it was a combination of ideas that I pulled out of my head and were pleasing to my eye. My living room today still maintains that original design which I labeled “the Spiral design” or “the Open helix” based on the DNA chromosome and or vine festooned trees. This design was popular with traditional English furniture known as the “sugar Barley twist” or some of the Flemish or Spanish furniture designs using the open barley.



My "steelchair53" line of furniture has evolved from a slab of rough sawn oak which was taken from a barn loft stash from a friend of mine. In the process i designed and made a large desk and a chair that matched, with a sofa and lamps and coffee table which will have end tables to match. this furniture smacks of "Steam punk", "Mad max", "Post Man, Water World and a smidgen of Dinatopia.

See the whole set, with some amazing furniture pieces (including a $3000 birdhouse), here.