It must have been difficult for Charlie Hightower 15 years ago when he launched his one-man building repair company in Barrington and had to find a way to advertise it.

Barrington Fix-it Shoppe can fix broken doors, windows, mailboxes, lights, faucets, disposals, drywall, weather stripping and woodwork, among other things. But putting all that in an ad might have required even more skill.

Luckily for Hightower, a 25-year Barrington resident who is part plumber, part electrician, and part carpenter, the phone book now includes a listing for "HANDYMAN."

"It's kind of an odd position," Hightower said. "You're not looking for a carpenter. You're not looking for a plumber. You're looking for a handyman." The name of Hightower's company is both a little deceptive and straightforward. The "Shoppe" is really his truck, which carries all his equipment and parts to jobs all over the northwest suburbs. But the "fix-it" is dead-on; Hightower's business consists almost exclusively of repairing existing components of homes and offices.

"There are guys out there who'll build new stuff, but I've always been fixing things,"Hightower said. "Hence the name."

Barrington Fix-it Shoppe asks customers to make a to-do list not only be­cause its more cost-effective for everyone but also because there's plenty of work to do. "Every home has at least a couple of things that are broken," Hightower says.

Previous experience has made Hightower espe­cially adept with glass, windows, and doors. He is an authorized service technician for Andersen Window Corp. Home Depot also has his phone number if one of their customers needs a hand.

In one morning last week Hightower installed a window for one customer and fixed four ceiling lights for another. The day before he fixed a chair rail and a mirror light in a customer's bathroom. On a different day, he might change a section of drywall.

No matter what it is, Hightower likes to do it.

"It's enjoyable," Hightower said. "Every day's a new challenge because I do so many different things. It's kind of hard to make sure I have all the parts on my truck all the time, so I'm not run­ning back and forth so much."

Hightower didn't turn into a jack-of-all-trades on purpose. After getting a college education that equipped him for a job in data processing, he "sat in of­fices for awhile and didn't really like it."

Instead, he found that he preferred the work he had done to earn money while studying in college. Glazing, or fitting windows with glass, allowed him to work with his hands, and he continued doing it for a large window company.

Glazing wasn't exactly paying the bills, but the skills he developed while serving customers on window jobs, in­cluding moving electrical outlets and fixing flawed installs, would come in handy as a supplement.

Later, the extra repairs became a whole new business.

"There's always a need for guys who can do repair work," Hightower said. "Along with glazing, I was doing repairs in the evenings on drywall or rotten wood, things like that. There was so much call for it out there, we figured we'd jump ship and start working on our own. It's been busy ever since."

For more information, call Barring-ton Fix-it Shoppe at (847) 382-7929 or visit its Web site at www.barringtonfixit.com.

Staff Writer Tom Johnston