Painting the perfect place to live Artist adds color and flavor to Fort Myers Beach home

Andrea Stetson
·4 min read
This home along a canal and Estero Bay on Fort Myers Beach has a plethora of special details from hand painted walls and murals to a glass side in the swimming pool.
This home along a canal and Estero Bay on Fort Myers Beach has a plethora of special details from hand painted walls and murals to a glass side in the swimming pool.
The mermaid statue by the pool was the inspiration for the mural painted by the artist. The home on Fort Myers Beach overlooks Estero Bay and a canal.
The mermaid statue by the pool was the inspiration for the mural painted by the artist. The home on Fort Myers Beach overlooks Estero Bay and a canal.
A giant mermaid mural was painted on the wall that separates the pool and lanai from the yard below. The homeowner says numerous boaters stop their vessels to look at the mermaid and take photos.
A giant mermaid mural was painted on the wall that separates the pool and lanai from the yard below. The homeowner says numerous boaters stop their vessels to look at the mermaid and take photos.

It began with a statue of a mermaid used as a water feature beside the pool. Artist Tina Marie Fleury, owner of Décor and After, took that theme and expanded on it by painting a mermaid scene on the walls of the pool bathroom. Next she created a nine foot mermaid mural on a large wall between the pool and the bay. The artist continued her work in the master bedroom where she painted a wall behind the bed to look like glittery wallpaper. She did a similar design in the half bathroom where all the walls have a wallpaper look, but are really hand painted.

Sharon and Joe Janicke love their home on Fort Myers Beach and all the special design elements it encompasses.

“We have six grandchildren, and I wanted a pool bath mermaid,” Sharon Janicke explained.

That’s how it all began. Janicke then had the artist continue her mural and wall designs.

“She is so talented,” Janicke said.

Janicke believes it adds to the home’s value and to its interest. She points to other homes that don’t have an interesting flavor and said she wanted her abode to have these special elements.

Fleury does not have an art degree, but learned by taking classes with local artists. She started her business in Southwest Florida in 2001.

“Wallpaper and fabrics, the textures, color combinations; those are the things that inspire me,” she explained. “My brain is thirsty. I have been doing the same thing for so long, I want to do more.”

For the master bedroom and bathroom, Fleury said she gathered inspiration from the stone wall in the great room behind the television and linear fireplace.

“The wall gave me the idea of doing the horizontal finish instead of vertical,” she explained.

She zoned in on colors from the kitchen cabinets and countertops.

The four bedroom, seven full and two half bathroom home has many other unique attractions. The backsplash in the kitchen is made of translucent stones that are backlit with LED lights, making it glow.

“The pool,” Janicke said when asked about some of her favorite elements. “I love it. It is like an aquarium. We had a man come from Chicago and he makes aquariums and he bent the glass.”

When people are in the infinity edge pool and go underwater, they can look at the water falling over the edge and see Estero Bay and the boats through the glass.

Janicke said her husband likes what he calls the martini deck, a porch perched high above the lanai up a spiral staircase. But her husband has other top picks.

“My favorite part is probably the views,” Joe Janicke said. “And I like the glass in the pool.”

The couple used to have an old ranch house on the property that they had torn down to build their new abode. Their current home spans a total of 12,000 square feet with both indoor and the spacious outdoor area. Outside screens and shutters can come down to enclose the under roof section of the lanai where there are spacious outdoor kitchen, sitting and dining areas. There are also two boat docks with lifts and roofs, along with a pier. The house, built by Koogler Homes, was designed to curve so almost every room has a view of the bay or canal.

“Wherever we go, we see the water,” Sharon Janicke said.

Inside Janicke loves the chandelier in the two story entryway.

“I think it’s bling. I love bling,” she described.

She also loves the great room ceiling that has a wooden circle center and then wood beams emanating out like rays of sun. The house has many extras like the butler’s kitchen and a large rec room. There is a space for a theater room, but the Janicke’s are currently using it for storage. Throughout the home the couple created a scene fit for their mermaids. The guest rooms have nautical themes. The exterior pool wall shimmers like mermaid scales with its iridescent, color tiles.

Janicke enjoys seeing people enjoy her home.

“This is what people pull up to see,” she said as she points to the giant mermaid mural on the exterior wall. ““It adds a lot of interest.”

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Painting the perfect place to live Artist adds color and flavor to Fort Myers Beach home