A whole world of fabric, selling for a song.

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When you're driving through Burnsville on Highway 72, you might not notice the unassuming warehouse-style building that houses Furniture, Fabrics & More, but if you venture inside, you'll be glad you did. This simple facade disguises one of the nation's largest fabric dealers.

Discard your preconceptions of a fabric store before you walk through the door. Instead of a small-to-midsize retail space with a moderate selection of fabrics, you'll find a cavernous 72,000 square feet filled with 600,000 yards of fabric in 6,000 varieties. If it is a bit overwhelming at first, don't worry. Owner Kary Peters has an encyclopedic knowledge of his inventory (computers get in his way) and a knack for finding just the right fabric for any need. The best part? The average price of a yard of fabric is just $3.99, and no fabric sells for more than $7.99 per yard. The store draws customers from a 300-mile radius and will see 200 walk-ins on a typical Saturday.

Kristina Barnard drove five hours from Beaver Dam, Kentucky, to shop at Furniture, Fabrics & More after she had despaired of finding affordable fabric in her own community. After she and her husband built a new house, she needed fabric for all her drapes and shower curtains. "Around here [in Kentucky], upholstery fabric is $22 to $29 per yard, so it was well worth my five-hour drive to Burnsville," she says. Barnard estimates she saved $400 by purchasing her fabric at Furniture, Fabrics & More. She priced fabric she bought for Roman shades at a regular retail outlet for $25 a yard but paid only $2.99 per yard at the Burnsville store. "We have nothing like that here, so I'm just amazed," she says.

In addition to its walk-in business, Furniture, Fabrics & More supplies fabric for 24 major retailers and handles upholstery needs for the boating industry, hotels, and restaurants. A major and rapidly growing portion of its business also goes to in-house upholstery. For example, a customer can bring in a sofa, select the fabric, and have the piece recovered in-house for a mere $350 plus the cost of fabric. An average piece requires 17 yards of fabric, which usually comes to an additional $68, a price well under what you would pay at other outlets.

Peters is looking to expand the store with branches near Oxford and Chicago, Illinois. His main focus is customer service. "As much as anything else, we want to do things right," he says.

In addition to his extensive knowledge of fabric, he has recently hired an interior decorator to consult with customers who are interested in the additional service.

"We're like a family here," Peters says, and he means it. His 11-person staff includes a cousin, a former brother-in-law, and his mother. He describes the store as Christian-based (no profanity allowed) and has employed as many as five preachers at one time.

The seeds of Peters' current business were sown during an earlier enterprise in which he designed and produced children's furniture, which he could upholster using a single yard of fabric, obtained as remnants. He became so good at finding fabric that he became a fabric buyer and then, in 2003, opened Furniture, Fabrics & More.

"We don't have competition," Peters says proudly of his store. "What we have is people screaming for our fabric."

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Furniture Fabrics & More

338 Hwy. 72 East

Burnsville, MS 38837

662-255-1592

photography by joe mckewen