SONORAN DIGS

User Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Great Place with best solid wood furniture and low prices, custom furniture mecca.

Print Article Email Article Most Popular Change Type Size Sonoran Digs a shopping adventure
Old Mexico furnishings
Angela Rabago-Mussi
Special for The Republic
Apr. 27, 2007 12:20 PM

Walking into Sonoran Digs is like traveling from the bland strip mall outside to a Mexican hacienda in just a few steps.

The feeling of history inside this Tolleson furniture and home decor store is palpable with rough-hewn heavy furniture, colorful artwork with a Mexican twist and an eclectic selection that includes everything from iron-scrolled chandeliers to massive pottery pieces.

People have been known to take hammers and heavy chains to their new furniture to get a distressed, lived-in look. But in this shop, rustic furniture created from salvaged wood earned its dents and worn edges the long, hard way.





Inside the cavernous store you can find a bench with arms made of old wagon wheels and a barn door for its seatback. An impressive 10-foot-high armoire was created using 100-year-old storm doors from a Mexican mansion.

The pieces inside Sonoran Digs can work with Old World, Spanish Colonial or even Tuscan interiors.

Nearly all of the merchandise carried in the store is imported from Guadalajara, Mexico. Store owners Fred and Marilyn Mazon say they strive to carry items that shoppers are unlikely to find anywhere else.

"Our philosophy is if someone else has it, we don't want it," Fred says.

The store is filled with furnishing creations that are not simply functional, but also artistic.

Quality is also key.

"No laminates, no particle board, no veneer," Mazon says, emphatically. "We try to stay away from 'border furniture,' which may have the same look, but the quality is inferior."

The store attracts adventurous homeowners who despise cookie-cutter looks.

Mary Bracamonte says Sonoran Digs carries "my type of furniture" and has filled her Verrado home with almost a dozen pieces from the store, including custom-finished tables.

Another regular customer is Diane Phagan, who moved to Avondale from the Midwest and was looking for rustic Southwest furniture to replace her old Victorian style.

"We looked everywhere for the kind of furniture we wanted, we even took a trip to Rocky Point," she says.

She found a whole houseful at Sonoran Digs - plus some of her first Arizona friends. The Mazons have since become good friends, and she appreciates their artistic eye.

"They know the history of what they sell. Their whole heart and soul is in it," Phagan says.

It's a true family business. The Mazons moved from Winslow to the Valley in 2004 to open their store. Fred says his family has a long retail history dating to the Civil War, when an ancestor moved to Arizona to open a trading post. His parents own two stores in Winslow.

The Mazons' two adult sons, Ryan and Derek, help run Sonoran Digs, doing everything from buying to creating custom finishes to making deliveries.

In the year that they've been located in the Crossroads at Tolleson Center, they've become known as supporters of independent artists. They recently hosted an art show of work by well-known Hispanic artist Jose Andres Giron.

They also carry original art pieces as part of their regular stock - including a series of papyrus wall hangings with backlighting that shines through cut-out designs made by a Mexican artist or a funky wall clock decorated with bottle caps, sequins and Frida Kahlo images.

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