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Joseph Rosario Torrisi’s workspace is filled with furniture. Some of it is broken and scratched. Nearly all of it is glorious. There’s the solid mahogany bedroom set lined with cedar from the 1940s, the dresser from the early 1800s, and a dining table from Denmark made of luxurious rosewood. The owners of these pieces have brought them to Torrisi, a master with wood when it comes to refinishing, repair and touch-up work.

Torrisi might protest to being called a master, but he admits he studied under one. It all began in the early ’80s. Torrisi, fresh out of school with a degree in criminal justice, had a decision to make. “When I got out, bus drivers were making more money than cops were, so I decided that was not what I wanted to do,” says Torrisi, who lived in Washington, D.C. at the time.

He worked a while in the printing trade. When that slowed, Torrisi found work in a refinishing shop owned by the father of some high school friends. “He was an old-school Italian woodworking man,” says Torrisi. “He was a cabinet maker and restorer and did quality European work. I liked that work so much I quit the printing trade and went into the business full-time and started taking side jobs.”

Before long, Torrisi’s side jobs grew into a flourishing business.

In 1982, Torrisi met Gabriel Farago, a true master woodworker and refinisher. Torrisi was determined to study under Farago and convinced the man to teach him in what would become a traditional unpaid European apprenticeship. Torrisi was especially interested in Farago’s expertise when it came to fixing mistakes.

“I wanted him to teach me the art of touch-up because that was something I was lacking. I could get a beautiful finish, but then if a bead of sweat fell off my head into the center of that top coat and put a fish eye in it, I didn’t know how to fix it,” says Torrisi, explaining he was such a perfectionist he would simply sand it and start over.

Torrisi worked 40 hours a week with Farago in addition to working a second job at night to pay the bills. It was difficult work. “He told me I didn’t know how to hold a screwdriver, and I didn’t know what sandpaper was for, but he was going to show me,” Torrisi laughs.

And Farago did — for nine months. The apprenticeship was supposed to last three years, but Farago died. “I would have finished out the whole thing,” Farago says, flipping through pages in a scrapbook full of mementos from that year.

Word soon spread in the D.C. area regarding Torrisi’s talent. For the better part of two decades, his was the hand that resulted in thousands of “after” pictures, giving furniture and cabinetry new life.

Now he’s starting over in Cary. He didn’t come to a bad end in D.C. — far from it. Torrisi fell in love and got married. His wife had her heart set on moving to the Triangle and Torrisi complied.

His shop, Rosario’s Restorations, is located in Woodwinds Industrial Court off Cary Parkway. Although Torrisi’s been in business less than a year, word is spreading fast. He’s not only working on refinishing traditional pieces, but also doing specialty refinishes. One client wants Torrisi to create a faux leopard finish for a tabletop that will match a bedspread. In his shop are color boards where he practices, as well as pastel shades for another client. Then there’s the carousel horse, forlorn with its broken tail and leg. A special project, Torrisi will piece it back together and match the paint.

Most of his requests these days, however, are from folks wanting him to remove paint from furniture and apply a finish that will show off the wood as is the case with the mahogany bedroom set. The owner of the antique dresser needs Torrisi to rebuild several of the drawers. And the Rosewood king table needs repair too.

Torrisi’s slogan at Rosario’s Restorations is “The original recycler.” He doesn’t understand how folks can throw out old furniture. “The old stuff is just made so much better. The wood’s better. The construction’s better,” he says.

These days he works alone, although he does hire out some piecework when necessary. “These are older guys because it’s the old-school stuff that I want,” says Torrisi. “When these old pieces come in, you’ve got to have someone who can hand-tie springs and isn’t going to throw away the horsehair and put cotton in. I’m one of the younger guys that’s doing this, and I’m 57.”

That’s not to say Torrisi just refinishes old pieces of furniture. Since he’s been in the Triangle, quite a bit of his work has been with kitchen cabinetry. Clients have been impressed with his skill to match a stain or finish to a piece of furniture.

Prices vary depending upon whether or not Torrisi has to strip paint first and how long he estimates a project will take. It’s not easy work. He wears a ventilator when he works and sports several chemical burns that are at least six weeks old, but look fresh. The chemicals he works with aren’t the kind you find in a typical home and garden store.

He’s given great pause to that as well. In addition to recycling old furniture — and his business — Torrisi is green when it comes to disposing of the chemicals he uses.

“We are very, very careful about what we do. We even recycle our empty containers of chemicals with the company we buy them from because we don’t even want a little bit of residue getting out in the water table,” he says.

Joe Torrisi’s work is how he makes a living. But it’s also a form of expression for him, an art. At the very back of his office space, behind the dressers and tables he’s restoring sit pieces he’s collected over the years. They’re in bad shape some of them, missing legs and scarred with years of use.

But Torrisi can’t bear to throw them away. They’ve got great potential.

Contact Christa Gala at www.christagala.com