Mark: “We are in fact, two cousins, but we are also close friends who have been virtually inseparable since we were teens.
I have been in the picture frame manufacturing industry for years, but really I have been “making things” for as long as I can remember. The best Christmas present I ever got was a complete set of hand wood working tools when I was twelve. Although they were little more than toys, they were real enough. You could drill holes, cut wood, drive screws and hammer nails. A dream come true.
I became interested in making some pipe racks for my own use, and found out Tim was working on some as well. We found ourselves spending long hours talking on the phone from our respective shops late in the evening. Although there were some very nice pipe racks and cabinets available, they seemed to be either at the very high end or the very low end. Tim and I wanted to see if we could design and make some cabinets that were a bit less formal – even funky. Using various finishing techniques, we hoped to create the look of found objects from attics and closets.
Our pipe racks are not fine cabinetry. They are fun and functional. We use features that we wanted in a pipe cabinet – secret compartments, tobacco storage and big rests for the large stemmed pipes that don’t seem to fit in most pipe racks.”
Tim: “I got my first oil paint set the Christmas Mark got his tools. I’m now a painter. That must have been one special Christmas for both of us.
A turning point in building things took place when Mark and I started attempting to make furniture for ourselves in our very early 20’s. We had no money (and no furniture). The results were poor to say the least.
But after three or four years, Mark showed up at my house one day and said he wanted to build a boat. We had no idea how to build a boat, but we did it. After that, I always felt anything was possible.
I want to make pipe racks that I would want – ones that look like something Errol Flynn would pack off to Fort Chukoti with him in Charge of the Light Brigade or Shirley Temple’s Grandfather would have in his mountain chalet in Heidi. I want to make pipe racks that look and feel like they have a history – a interesting history.”