The Sussmans of Sands Point have lived in their
contemporary home for 11 years, and for 11 years the large living-dining room
has sat empty. For the first nine years, the rationale was that a renovation
was down the road, and then for the two years after the renovation, the
rationale was ... well, it's complicated.
"It doesn't feel empty because, in my head, I can visualize it finished,"
says Sharon Sussman, whose long-suffering husband, Marc, is ready for some real
chairs, now, today. "But I just can't go to the store and fit the right
pieces. I buy and return."
She's been desperate for a designer to provide a computer drawing that
shows her how the space would look furnished. Floor plans don't work for her,
and she just can't let go and give a designer carte blanche.
"They show me a swatch of purple and a line drawing ... it never gets me
over the hump," she says. "It's very hard for me when it's all piecemeal, and I
never see it all come together."
First step
There's a Chinese adage that says a journey of a thousand miles begins with
the first step. But it's the first step - the first paint chip, the first
piece of furniture, the first decision - that can paralyze otherwise competent
people and keep even a grand room completely empty or barely furnished for
years.
The reasons are not all that hard to understand. There's the panic over
that blank canvas of a room. There's indecision over how to use the room.
There's confusion over what to get, where to get it, and where to put it.
There's the expense - and fear of expensive mistakes. There's even a lack of
urgency because, frankly, the room is not really needed.
"This room has been totally unused since 1998, when my older son moved out
for college," says Penny Reich, in a bare bedroom of her Wantagh split. The
smallest bedroom still has a bed and a dresser, but has been unused "since my
youngest son moved out in 2002."
Now, Reich, an elementary school teacher in Bellmore, and her husband,
Stephen, a retired guidance counselor, want to create a little television room
there because their downstairs den gets cold in winter.
"We've been to six or seven places looking for a sofa," she says. "It's
hard for me to visualize. Can I use a sofa with a piece that comes out, a
chaise part? Is there room to put a coffee table? Where would I put a lamp?
Could I fit in a sectional?"
In Smithtown, Joan Martin, an executive assistant at CA with three grown
daughters, moved into a new Victorian-style home in a new development more than
a year ago with her husband, Ray, who works in finance. He has strong
preferences, she says, while she can live with anything, so he chose the dark
colors in the dining room and kitchen. They watch TV in the den.
But the living room is still unfinished. She wants a softer-hued, more
formal look there but doesn't know how to start. Two pieces of their old
sectional and an old wall unit furnish it now, but the walls are bare and in
builder's white; paper shades are from Home Depot, and the wood floors are
rugless. The lighting in the tall foyer, the living and dining rooms are
builder's bulbs.
"Because it's all open, it all has to blend together," she says. "It gets
confusing to me, and I'm afraid I'm going to do something I don't like. So I
leave it."
In the case of Laurie and Adam Cotumaccio in Port Washington, a small room
behind the small kitchen is empty when it's not full of groceries or unused
exercise equipment. It was listed as a fifth bedroom when they bought the
house, and Laurie, 37, a freelance publicist, says she thinks it is important
for resale value. But with two young children, a TV-play area off the living
room and four other bedrooms, there's no clear use for it. While they've
discussed enlarging the kitchen into the space and improving the flow to the
backyard, she is loathe to give up the extra room.
"We've never really used it for anything since moving in here almost five
years ago," she says. "We take turns getting mad because it gets filled up with
stuff, and we take turns cleaning it out. Basically, anything we can't figure
out where to put winds up here."
Competing ideas
Too many potential uses is more the problem with the Morottas' now-vacant
bedroom in Massapequa, where unused exercise equipment, and other odds and
ends, have figured prominently since the eldest son left home. Now, the
skylit-and-cathedral-ceiling room "isn't large enough to do everything we want
to do. The vision is much greater than the reality," Karen Morotta says.
She says she wants a cozy library; husband Michael, an insurance company
manager, says he wants a flat-screen TV or cigar room; daughter, Jenna, 22, a
comfy couch and a DVD; and son Steven, 15, a hangout room with a Ping-Pong
table.
The Ping-Pong table was ruled out rather quickly: "I don't want it
decorated with kid stuff. I want it to tie in with the rest of the house," says
Karen Morotta, who adds that she wants Steven to feel comfortable enough to
hang out there - "with my decorative touches."
Jenna offers her mother her own solution: "We just need a comfy couch. Dad
could watch TV on a comfy couch, you could read on a comfy couch, we could all
watch TV on a comfy couch."
