Antique-filled home: It’s not just a hobby. It’s an adventure.
Frances Fitz-Gerald loves antiques, and her home reflects that passion. It’s in her blood.
“My mother kept a London Fog rain coat in the trunk,” Frances said. “She’d slip it on, regardless of the weather or temperature, to hide her sterling silver or whatever she’d picked up that day, hoping my father wouldn’t notice. Her return was usually timed to coincide with his evening toddy.”
Frances’ penchant for holding on to quality family keepsakes and her 40-year habit of collecting means she has plenty to choose from when she and daughter Kate Roane refresh the home’s interior.
Frances doesn’t hide her purchases from her husband, John. He has had as much fun as she has, traveling and shopping for antiques. He does help “rein her in,” she said. She does hide some of her finds from visitors. The Fitz-Gerald family has no room for vehicles in the two-car garage.
“We redo a room about every five years,” Frances said. “I try to take something out before I bring something in.”
It’s an ideal, not an absolute. Kate sweetly and discreetly shares her mother’s sentiment for holding on to certain items, which, according to Kate, may keep a room from perfectly coming together. (Kate has a background in interior design.)
“Mother had a rug in the bedroom that really weighed down the room,” Kate said. “She didn’t want to get rid of it because it was one of the first things John bought for her.”
Whether an item may seem out of place in a room doesn’t matter to Frances when she’s made space for it in her heart. That’s why she keeps an overstuffed chair in the corner of her dining room, her children’s artwork in one of the home’s bathrooms and her grandmother’s biscuit making table in the garage.
Frances has made a career out of selling jewelry and antiques. She has snagged items from shops for less than their market value and relishes the adventure. However, she also admits to experiences the amateur bidder, dumpster diver and the do-it-yourselfer can appreciate.
“John and I were at a big auction and we saw this painting on the upper level at a distance and loved it,” she said, pointing to a painting that takes up almost an entire living room wall. “We could tell it was in a museum quality frame, but we had no idea it was so large. It was one of the last pieces auctioned and the crowd applauded our purchase. It was one of those auctions where liberal amounts of free food and wine were served,” she said, chuckling.
Frances buys for the bones, she said, even chairs her husband described as ugly at the time.
“The scale was perfect for the room,” she said. “The height was right. The width was right. So many of today’s furnishings are oversized, the Michelin look. (This is a term to describe overstuffed, rounded upholstered edges.)
Frances called on local merchants, A&M Upholstery, to switch out the 1970s green fabric with a light neutral. Accent pillow fabric is repeated in the chair’s piping.
Frances, like most do-ityourselfers, loves to find deals and add a little paint or bling to transform the ho-hum into the wow. Her elegant dining room chandelier is an example of her creative handiwork.
She admitted to dumpster diving, of a sort. She quickly pulled in to a Canal Street hotel when she saw a gold ornate mirror going into the dumpster.
Frances and John were visiting a shop in Santa Fe when she found her living room coffee table.
“It’s an antique Spanish door made into a table,” Frances said. “The wrought iron was custom-designed.”
The table is the perfect antique rustic counterpoint for the room. The size and price, like the “ugly” chairs was also perfect.
“It takes four grown men to move it,” Frances said. “I paid more for shipping than I did for the table.”
Even though the Fitz-Gerald house is filled with antiques, Frances Fitz-Gerald believes the comfort of the home is first and foremost. After her emphasis on comfort, she likes to emphasize the right lighting to set the mood. Finally she looks to art and surroundings that inspire.
“That’s why I like an eclectic mix,” she said, “to invoke different moods and feelings.”
Kate Roane puts emphasis on fabrics, textures and colors. She starts by getting the perfect color on the walls.
“Fabrics, textures and colors in a home make all the difference to me,” Roane said. “It can create a sense of ease with a touch of flair. Choosing the right weight of the fabric for an upholstered piece or drapery is important as well. It can make or break a room.”
The home of John and Frances Fitz-Gerald, Lake Charles.
Sea shells in an Imari bowl on a silver pedestal, silver candelabras, large etched hurricane globes and a Japanese Obi used as a table runner on the Fitz-Gerald’s Chippendale banded dining table.