After retiring from IBM, The Cardinal at North Hills resident John Hall has been busy. Most of the time, you can find him in his workshop, a tiny space where the Kisco Senior Living high-rise continuing care retirement / life plan community in Raleigh, NC, lets him work his magic with wood.
“You don’t have to walk too far between pieces of equipment. You’ll probably run into them,” Hall joked. “It’s a small shop, and you can’t really do very large projects, but most of the equipment in there was equipment that I had in my backyard when we had a house about a mile from here.”
A Cardinal resident for five years, Hall has made a name for himself as the resident woodworker. He has made breadboards and cabinets, and he even has donated a few tables for the community to auction off.
“There are tables I’ve made with a round, granite top and cabriole legs, and I make a lot of those here,” Hall said. “Ladies like to put flowers on them near the window. I think everybody here has got all the furniture they’ll ever need, but they still buy these tables at the silent auctions for charity.”
Hall’s work has not only spruced up living rooms in the community; it also has served practical purposes. His creativity made a huge difference for all his bedridden neighbors during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When we first had COVID-19, everybody had to wear masks, and you had to talk to everybody behind a glass window. I made a little cart that they used to serve the people who were bedridden so that someone could give food to them.”
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