At home in their Surroundings

BY GLORIA STRAVELLI
Staff Writer

Amy Riger (l-r), Ginny Resman and Ursula Ellis have teamed up to create a home furnishings store that showcases diverse styles and periods of furniture and accessories. OCEAN TOWNSHIP — They don’t show up at your house with nail guns and saws, but three partners in a new home furnishings store can nonetheless help transform a home from top to bottom.

“The popularity of TV shows like ‘Trading Spaces’ has helped demystify the notion of designing and decorating your own living space,” said Amy Riger, interior designer for Surroundings, which opened recently in Ocean Township. “Our goal is to make the job even more enjoyable by offering great products and good, solid designs at affordable prices.”

PHOTOSBY SCOTT PILLING staff Surroundings is the collective vision of Riger and friends (and now business partners) Ginny Resman and Ursula Ellis. They were inspired to create a unique home furnishings and accessories store founded on a simple concept reflected in the motto, “Home furnishings and accessories for the way you live.”

“That motto says you can find anything from traditional, classic, transitional, contemporary — any different attitude you may want can be found here,” explained Riger, Ocean Township. “I want people to know they can find furniture and accessories in all flavors here — it’s not just one look.

“There are no rules in decorating anymore,” Riger observed. “It’s whatever you can live with and a harmonious relationship, in terms of color, texture.”

Surroundings is located at 3303 Fairmont Ave., next to the Wanamassa post office. Hours are Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Monday and Tuesday by appointment.

The 3,000-square-foot store is arranged in vignettes designed to illustrate elements of different periods and styles of furnishings from wall color to upholstery fabric.

“It’s very important for me the way the store looks in room vignettes to show colors, textiles,” Riger said. “It’s different. There’s no store like it in terms of what it looks like and how the owners work here — what we are willing to do customer service-wise,” she said.

“We’re creating our own niche here – which is unique product, reasonably priced, beautifully presented.”

An interior designer by training and trade, Riger is the creative vision for Surroundings.

She was the owner of Spindletree, an eclectic gift and accessories store she operated in Farmingdale for 17 years. She has had her own design firm for 20 years and has wide experience with both home interior design and commercial design.

The success of the interior design studio she ran out of her home was the impetus for Surroundings.

“The interior design business couldn’t grow,” Riger explained, “and I knew, since I had done a store by myself, that I couldn’t be any greater than one person.”

The timing was right for a move to a retail space, and Riger enlisted Resman and Ellis in the enterprise.

“Ginny and Ursula had everything I needed. I convinced them both to take the plunge,” she said.

Resman, Ocean Township, who has a background in product development for Macy’s, is in charge of the store’s inventory control system.

She met Riger when she was looking for an interior designer for her kitchen renovation, and the two became friends.

“We hit it off,” Resman said. “We started walking and talking about our backgrounds. I wanted to get back into something and her design business was growing. She couldn’t take on any more work without expanding. We talked about it for two years, then started looking for space, and here we are.”

Ellis, Howell, presides over the back office and participates in buying, and her sunny demeanor lends Surroundings a casual ambiance.

“She is our resident happy person,” Riger said. “One thing people are saying is that it doesn’t feel like a store, it feels like a home. That’s pretty cool.”

Surroundings offers one-stop shopping for every room in the house. Vignettes showcase furniture from desks to upholstered pieces, wall art like hangings and mirrors, hand-loomed area rugs, lighting, and accessories like table linens, frames and window treatments. A smattering of children’s upholstered pieces are on display that match the quality of grown-up furnishings and add a touch of whimsy to the showroom.

Customers can buy furnishings off the floor at Surroundings or browse an extensive collection of catalogs.

“We’re working with furniture that’s sold on the designer level, not mass merchandised all over,” Riger said of the store’s furniture collection,

A fabric library makes hundreds of fabric selections available for custom ordering.

Prices for home furnishings range from $10 for candles to $4,000 for a custom sofa.

A unique service available to shoppers at Surroundings is the “Seeing Is Believing” loan program whereby an item, like a wall hanging, can be “borrowed” and taken home for up to 48 hours.

The option allows customers to see how the piece works in their home. They can return the item unscathed for no charge.

In the end, the vision at Surroundings is to help people have a beautiful home environment that reflects their own tastes at prices they can afford.

“The myth is that everybody thinks interior design is expensive,” Riger said. “I think we’re really affordable to most people. A lot of people are afraid to use a designer because they think it will cost so much. They may pay for a plan upfront, but they won’t waste money in the end. I will teach them that it’s ultimately their house and they have to be happy with it.”