The fix is in

The pair of leather toy pigs with severed tails.

A remote-control car that blew a flat.

Numerous chairs with split legs and cracked backs; defiant deck umbrellas refusing to crank open and closed; doorknobs with gunked-up works.

No, we’re not taking inventory of a junk heap - these were all projects that crossed the workbench of Seth Barrett, a Renaissance man with his hands.

“It’s a lost art, for sure,’’ said the versatile repairman, leaning against the workbench in his Brookline shop, Village Green Renewal, behind him an orderly display of various-sized mallets, doorknobs, dowels, glue, pencils, and scuffed boxes mounded with wooden thingamabobs.

He paused and amended, “Or maybe it’s a found art.’’

You might say this is your grandfather’s repair shop.

Huddled among the snug array of businesses just off Brookline’s tony Washington Street, Village Green Renewal is an all-purpose handyman service that seems more befitting of a Frank Capra movie than the bustle and clatter of the new millennium.

Behind the wavy-glass windows, passersby can see the apron-clad Barrett hunkered over his bench, clasping a mallet or chisel, tinkering with an assemblage of household items - lock sets whose keys long ago wandered away, electric razors with gummy buttons, doorbells that no longer chime, tipsy rocking chairs, temperamental toasters. Really anything that can be carried through the creaky storefront door, as long as the restoration doesn’t require a special license or permit.

“It’s nostalgic; everybody who walks by here smiles,’’ said Barrett, at that moment waving through the wide shop windows to a friend walking up the street. “I love to have people bring me preposterous repairs, things they thought they’d never have again. I’m somebody who cares about their broken stuff, who wants to repair beautiful things.’’

The 42-year-old Brookline native and father of two, who spent years in the building trades working up from the demolition crew to lead carpenter, said he was lured to a more “detail-oriented’’ line of work.

Largely, though, Village Green Renewal, which opened in December, is a remedy to what its proprietor sees as society’s wasteful, throw-away mentality.

“The most traditional and most commonly overlooked method of conservation is reuse,’’ said Barrett, wearing a long, appropriately green apron, with a tattooed forearm hinting at his affinity for punk music.

This inclination toward sustainability extends to his enviable commute - home sits just 700 feet from the shop. “We’re trapped in a disposable loop,’’ he asserted. “This really gives people an opportunity to bring stuff out of the basement, put it back in circulation.’’

With an added incentive from the economy, of course.

As wallet-watching becomes ever more the national pastime, people are progressively veering away from the shiny and new and instead sparing items that might otherwise have gone to the appliance graveyard.

Although there aren’t many statistics to support this, those in the trade are certain about an emerging formula.

“If it costs less than half the price of buying a new one, people will fix it,’’ said Michael Donovan, president of the National Appliance Service Association and owner of Vacuum Depot in Bay Shore, N.Y. Whereas “in the past, they might’ve just thought about buying a new one.’’

Particularly, this is true with higher-priced items, he said, such as vacuums, espresso machines, and razors. With lower-priced appliances, meanwhile, mainly due to cost and the admitted “planned obsolescence’’ factor, disposal will undoubtedly prevail.

Overall, though, “I think repairs will continue to build,’’ said the association’s vice president, Scott Kopin, who owns the Repair Shack in Berkeley Heights, N. J. “It’s almost always the lesser of two evils on your pocketbook.’’

And, as Barrett has seen, it’s often the salvage yard of the past.

“A lot of people have memory associated with whatever it is they bring in,’’ he explained amid the periodic whoosh of midday traffic heard through his open shop door.

Clearly, this day’s project had been over-loved: On the bench, tipped on its back, was a Windsor-style chair, one rung snapped, seat blackened by decades of use.

“I think somebody may have tripped over it,’’ Barrett theorized as he looked it over, holding a mallet with a head the size and shape of a soup can.

Nearby, arranged expectantly in glass cases, were hot and cold faucet heads, glass doorknobs with what look like tiny suspended air bubbles, others of bronze with fleur-de-lis patterns; elsewhere, brass and wooden curtain rods were bunched onto string like gaudy necklaces; keys overflowed from Martinson’s Coffee cans; Dewar’s whisky and Beefeater gin crates held treasures such as antique light bulbs and lamp globes.

No doubt, the versatility differentiates Barrett from most repairmen - look in the online Yellow Pages and you’ll find mostly specialized tradesmen, such as computer and iPod doctors, vacuum rehabilitators, cobblers, mechanics, electricians, plumbers.

But with a “jack of all trades’’ dad and a mom who restored antiques, Barrett’s vocation seems inevitable.

Growing up, he admitted, his hero was Luis, who ran the aptly titled “Fix-It Shop’’ on “Sesame Street.’’ (“I might look more like Mr. Hooper,’’ Barrett quipped.)

Early on, he got a set of hand tools. Then, his parents granted him access to the junk room in the basement, where he ripped apart and reassembled phones and lamps, “just playing with stuff.’’

As soon as he got a good bike, he pedaled around with a basketful of tools. Eventually, he set up a workbench and did little repairs - washing machines, sticky doors - mostly for neighbors and friends’ parents.

“I can’t really keep my hands off stuff,’’ he said, noting that he found himself playing with the pedal of an abandoned bicycle recently while at the park with his kids. “If something is fiddly or wonky, I’m on it immediately.’’

Mostly, it’s the tinkering and the puttering, the solving of the riddle, that appeals to him.

“With most repairs, there’s no formulaic method - it’s gotta be discovered on the fly,’’ he said. “Everything is a puzzle.’’