Jim Rametta of Vandergrift spent 30 years planning to take up woodworking as a hobby.
About five years ago, he made his dreams a reality.
Rametta, 64, made a wheelbarrow planter out of pine for his wife. That planter sat in Rametta's front yard until about two years ago.
"We finally did away with it," he said.
Rametta's very first project, which he completed in wood shop in high school, was the construction of a pine bench.
After a hiatus that lasted decades, Rametta jumped back into woodworking with the planter and hasn't stopped since.
In fact, to say that woodworking is a hobby of his might be an understatement.
A reporter sat down in Rametta's living room and asked him to point out some of the things he made.
Rametta replied, "You're surrounded by them."
On one of the end tables in his living room sits a lamp he made out of nine exotic woods, such as ebony, Brazilian cherry and mahogany.
Rametta also made the end table, in addition to a coffee table, shelves, a sofa table and a host of other pieces of furniture and decorations.
On the dining room table, Rametta set out various other pieces he'd made: toy trains and cars, decorative clocks in the shape of a watch, and birdhouses.
The Harrison Avenue resident said he spends up to 25 hours per week on various projects. And he does it with considerable care.
A friend of Rametta's asked Rametta to make him a plaque he could mount a deer head on. Rametta gladly accepted the challenge and spent three months on the project. So much time was needed, Rametta said, because the plaque required 18 coats of lacquer.
Rametta prefers to work with hardwoods such as cherry as opposed to pine, saying, "I just like the aroma."
He rarely paints what he makes.
Rametta started working with wood shortly before retirement.
"I told my wife that if I don't do it now, I'll never do it," he said.
Completely serious about his plans, Rametta constructed an elaborate woodshop above his garage. He even bought the house next door so he could use its garage to store wood.
About his wood shop, Rametta joked, "I always told my wife, 'I'm going out to heaven.' She'd say, 'I'll call you in from heaven when it's time to make dinner.'"
That running joke is stamped on every piece of woodcraft that Rametta makes, literally.
Each creation of Rametta's is stamped, "Heaven's Crafts."
Rarely does Rametta sell any of what he makes.
"I usually just give the stuff away," he said.
What does he love so much about being a finish carpenter?
"It's the aroma of freshly cut wood," he said, "and the excitement of finishing a project."
