Being sent to your room really isn't a hardship if you're Jax Haney.
The 3-year-old's bedroom is a day at the beach. Sun, sand, surf, sailboats and sea creatures are painted or hung around the walls in a postcard-perfect vacation scene.
His parents, Deshi and Robb Haney of Ringgold, Ga., chose the family's favorite retreat as their inspiration.
Mrs. Haney said family trips to Panama City Beach, Fla., for summer vacation were part of her childhood years as well as her husband's. Once married, they have continued to visit the Florida Panhandle as well as make several trips to Cancun, Mexico.
Mrs. Haney said she began collecting nautical and beach souvenirs on each trip with this project in mind.
"Jax's room was lime green, a girly room before. So we had to change that. I was trying to do a room that would grow with him. I didn't want to make it too childish," Mrs. Haney said.
The Haneys began by having the room's ceiling painted blue and the walls painted blue on the top half with beige on the lower half.
Then they called upon Lydia Reynolds of Lydia's Hand Painting to create an undersea mural the length of one wall, a beach scene on the opposite wall and a map of Florida above Jax's bed.
Ms. Reynolds said it took about 10 hours to create the beach scenes, which she did freehand. Keeping in mind the durability needs of an active preschooler's room, she used acrylic paints so the walls are washable.
"The underwater scene has coral, sand, sea turtles, sharks and all these little tropical fish," said Ms. Reynolds.
Jax can name every fish in the saltwater scene -- but he proudly adds he's a bass fisherman.
"I got the idea for the map from Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville in Panama City Beach. I took lots of pictures and showed them to Lydia," said Mrs. Haney.
Mrs. Haney used the same picture-to-paint approach for the sharks, sea turtle and other sea life she requested for the mural.
In addition to the painted sea creatures, a variety of resin starfish, shells and fish are attached to the walls, adding a 3-D effect.
A sailfish arcs above the undersea mural. A colorful lizard rests beneath the palm tree painted into the beach scene. Seagulls soar over the painted sands, leading the eye to a sailboat on the horizon.
Mr. Haney asked Hitson Cabinet Design to make a headboard and matching chest of drawers with a weathered, distressed finish. Mr. Haney said the headboard was made by dismantling an industrial pallet, then distressing and glazing the wood.
Instead of traditional bedside table lamps, Mrs. Haney hung lanterns from each corner of the headboard, which she converted with light kits to make them functional. A mini-aquarium sits on one bedside table; coconuts painted to look like pirates sit on the other and on the chest of drawers.
A fish net draped above the drawers, complete with its bounty of starfish and shells, finishes the room's nautical feel.
