‘Family Traditions’ in Cape Coral shines bright after Hurricane Ian

Lamp lighting usually sets the mood and helps people relax, but they’ve also been used for therapy after Hurricane Ian.

Family Traditions is a home decor store in Cape Coral and people have been bringing in their broken lamps to be repaired because it’s often the only thing they had left intact after a category five storm.

Flipping the switch on damages caused by Hurricane Ian.

“It’s heartwarming, it brings hope.” Kelsey Crandall owns Family Traditions, a home decor business that gives furniture a second life.

“It’s felt like we built a family here in the community throughout these years,” said Crandall.

Unlike thrift stores, every piece in Family Traditions Home Decor and Furnishing is hand-picked. Whether it be a lampshade or a piece of furniture.

However, less than two years ago many of those hand-picked items were lost when Ian struck.

“Unfortunately, during Hurricane Ian, one of our units, the roof caved in,” Crandall explained.

The storm damaged most of her inventory, but Crandall said her family was ready to rebuild.

“I was in quite a rush to get to a new location and fill the store with furniture because I thought you know, everybody’s gonna need furniture,” she said.

Or so she thought.

As it turns out, it wasn’t furniture Crandall’s customers came searching for.

“We saw this uptick in selling lampshades that had gotten damaged. People coming in with their lamps saying that this is all they have left,” she explained.

Lamps, the unlikely survivor in many southwest Florida homes.

According to Crandall, “A lot of people from Sanibel Island and Fort Myers Beach coming in and literally saying we lost everything except for this lamp and I figured it could be salvaged.”

The lamps she fixes make life brighter, for more reasons than one.

“We were able to clean them all up, replace all the brass parts and bring them new life and the joy that it brought people. I just get goosebumps thinking about it. It was really remarkable.”

Restoring both the hardware and memories each lamp holds for the families that bring them in.