Former President Jimmy Carter was often photographed, hammer in hand, helping to build homes for Habit for Humanity.
But he was also an avid furniture maker. Earlier this year, the White House Historical Association described Carter as a "master woodworker."
In a 1984 interview with United Press International, Carter said he typically spent three or four hours a day in his woodshop.
"I just finished making some picture frames, my first experience of that," he said, adding that he and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, "are measuring an entire room for bookshelves."
Carter commissioned a rocking chair from renowned furniture maker Sam Maloof, describing the master as his "woodworking hero."
In 2004, Carter wrote a short blog post for Fine Woodworking magazine describing his woodworking journey. A photo on the post shows Carter putting finish on a live-edge table.
"Since I was a child, woodworking has played an important role in my life," he wrote. Carter described his most recent project at the time: a large cabinet made of pine boards taken from the first home built on his family's farm in 1833.
He said as he was preparing to leave the White House after his defeat in the 1980 presidential election, his Cabinet members took up a collection to buy him a Jeep. But Carter dropped a hint that he'd like something else: a gift certificate for woodworking tools. "It has been the most enjoyable gift I've ever received," he wrote.
Carter said that as he wrote his White House memoir at home in Plains, Ga., in 1981, "I put in several solid hours of writing before and after breakfast, and each day I walked the 20 steps to my woodshop for a restful vacation. …"
"In those quiet moments, I practiced dovetail and finger joints, learned ornamental carving, and became more skilled with the router, lathe, and other power tools. Over the course of that year, we acquired a log cabin in the North Georgia mountains, and I built all of its furnishings — beds, chairs, tables, benches, cabinets, stools, and even the smaller items needed in the bathrooms," he wrote.
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