LYNN – Summer is a great time for scouring outdoor flea markets and craft fairs for antique furniture.One problem with antiques, evident by definition, is they?re old and showing their age, which is where furniture restorer Ronald Trapasso comes in.Trapasso has been in the business for 40 years and began as an apprentice at the Attwill Furniture Company after graduating from the North Bennett School of Boston in 1969. Under owner J. Sanger Attwill and cabinet maker Mario Torto, Trapasso says he was taught the “old school” way of restoring furniture, using homemade shellac and glue made from horse hooves, tricks from the 100-year-old trade.?When I came, I got the best of everything,” said Trapasso, noting specifically how the shop?s business flourished during the nation?s Bicentennial, just before he became owner in 1977. “Museums were scrambling to find someone to restore pieces – we got it all.”Unfortunately, Trapasso says business didn?t stay the same.?Now things have changed. You don?t see the stuff you used to see.”He says one reason for a drop in business is that viewers believe what they learn from television.?Antique Roadshow tells people ?Don?t refinish? because they want to keep the antique finish ?,” Trapasso says. “But they refinish paintings, don?t they? Wouldn?t they refinish a car? It?s fine for pieces in climate-controlled museums, but if you have a piece to be used in a house, it needs to be restored.”Trapasso can restore the integrity of the piece and make it useful, but admits there?s a difficult balance in keeping the piece?s value. “I have to be able to restore it, but not ruin the antique value. It?s a fine line,” he said.Most of what Trapasso has worked on in the last few years are family pieces which clients want fixed up for sentimental reasons. One of his recent projects was a “Chippendale” couch that dates back to 1910 that he aims to make more “comfortable.” The low couch with talon?s feet on the legs will be upholstered with new fabric and stuffed with down cushion, what Trapasso calls a “very costly” project.His admits the restoration process can be costly. The down cushion for the Chippendale coach costs upward of $4,000.?I couldn?t afford this myself,” he said.His customers come from as close as Nahant, Marblehead and Boston, and span as far as New York and Ohio. Trapasso does all the restoration work himself, but works with a moving company which ships the pieces back and forth.Trapasso says if restoration is done right, furniture can last for another 100 years. “People don?t know what they?re doing when they try to fix it,” he said. When Trapasso first gets a piece, he often spends time trying to get polyurethane – a chemical that he says doesn?t belong on antiques – off the wood.Trapasso has worked on pieces that date back as far as the 1600s, but most of the furniture he sees is 1750 to present day. He says he also works on new pieces and has made his own furniture as well. He says he works on as many as six projects at once in his two-floor shop on Essex Street. His daily business hours, he says, are from 9 a.m. until “whenever I feel like going home.”?Now with the economy it?s hard to stay busy,” he says. “There?s more work for one person, but not enough for two.”The oldest thing in Trapasso?s shop right now is a rickety rocking chair from the 1800s, but Trapasso sees the beauty in it, noting the quality of the old mahogany. “I love working on busted up old chairs,” he noted.The Attwill shop used to be on Washington Street, but Trapasso moved it to the Lynnway in 1981, just two weeks before the Great Lynn Fire destroyed much of the downtown, including Attwill?s original site. He?s been in the Essex Street shop for 10 years.Contact Trapasso at Attwill Furniture, 131 Essex St., Lynn, by phone at 781-592-5262 or visit the company?s Web site at www.attwillfurniture.com.