He should know better than almost anyone in town, considering Chintz-N-Prints and the Gardner family are celebrating 50 years in business next month.

Among the bountiful fabric selections are treasures Mr Gardner has spent the last 50 years accumulating. These unique bolts are nestled among his newer stock.

“We have a lot of vintage fabrics that hardly anybody else has anymore,” he said. But  guest may consider these patterns a windfall if they are trying to match old tapestries or reupholster an antique dining room chair, he explained.

Also, trends go in spurts. Mentioning slipcovers and drapery, he said, “That comes and goes. And colors are another thing. They come back.”

He has often seen patterns and materials come in and out of style throughout his years in the business — a family-owned shop started by his parents Alexander and Louise Gardner.

Open since 1957, the retailer carries current, vintage, and even pineapple-printed merchandise. Mr Gardner remembers the earliest days of a career and still surrounds himself with plaids, solids, patterns and themed fabrics 50 years later.

“I worked in the store as a kid,” he said. After high school, he went college and joined the Navy. During that time he also sold upholstery for the mills and worked intermittently at the [family] store.

What has kept him in the business?

“I liked selling and I enjoy fabric,” Mr Gardner said. Blending into the yards of fabric around him, he randomly reached out to tug a swatch of cloth from one roll or brush his fingers against a fringe, trim, or another feature that adds to the variety at Chintz-N-Prints. Further considering what has kept him in business and in the same location since his mother and father opened the shop, he said: “The people.”

He enjoys helping customers choose slipcovers, clothing materials, or upholstery, for example, but ultimately knows customers need to make their own decisions, he said.

“There are all types of people,” he said. “When people come in I find it fun to see if they need something, do they want help?” Some customers come in with questions and others browse, but the final purchase winds down to one point. “What’s most important? Whatever someone likes.” Some people need fabric for clients and others need it to accomplish their own sewing, he said.

In the last 50 years he has expanded the shop, but it has remained in the same location.

Along with the thousands of fabrics available to his customers, Mr Gardener believes familiarity has added to his business’s prosperity. In addition to his two longtime employees, Diane Wolcott and Barbara Isquith, his daughter Laura Gardner has joined now joined him.

“We’re on our third generation of clients,” he pointed out. “So, if someone has been coming here and working with somebody, it’s more familiar than walking in and you don’t know anyone.”

Chintz-N-Prints also has a lot to offer.

With a glance down one isle of fabric rolls propped along the wall he said: “Our selection of fabrics is broader than most.” Selection and inventory has led to his store’s success. Aside from the bolts, he also has pillow stuffing and foam in a variety of sizes, lengths of fringe, samples of cloth as they would look hanging in a window, stretched across a chair, and more. Mr Gardner has always liked the fabric business.

“I like people I meet, I like selling,” he said. “It’s something I know.”

Dealing primarily with the fabrics, he and his staff will recommend seamstresses and upholsterers to customers who need additional service. Other clients sew themselves.

“We have had people make their prom dresses — you have to know your own sewing at that point.” During the years in operation, Mr Gardner recalls a few unusual moments. At one time a hotel had been next door, where he and employees would stay if snowstorms were too heavy, for example.

Otherwise, he said, Chintz-N-Prints has experienced slow and steady growth. The original building was 3,000 square feet of space, which received an expansion in the back in 1980, adding 4,200 square feet. Walking back to the additional display space clogged with rows of merchandise, he said, “I never thought we would fill the back.”

Retirement? He intends to continue working.

“People ask when I am going to retire, but I get away enough that I don’t have to retire,” he said.

Chints-N-Printz is open Monday through Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm (Thursday until 7 pm). The store, at 39 South Main, can be reached by calling 426-2022.