Children's Bedroom

Mo dern design is part of Tia Salmela Keobounpheng’s DNA. “It’s what I’ve always known, growing up with my dad as an architect,” she says. Her dad, Duluth architect David Salmela, is perhaps best known for the widely acclaimed, all-white Jackson Meadow neighborhood in Marine on St. Croix. “Cleanness—that’s my normal,” Keobounpheng says. “We did have some heirloom pieces growing up, but overall everything was very clean. If it wasn’t white, it was probably black.”

So it came as no surprise when Keobounpheng and her husband, Souliyahn, gravitated toward the 1953 ranch-style home they purchased five years ago—mostly because of its simple architectural lines and basic palette of materials. Its interior spaces are almost entirely white, save for one: The bedroom for the couple’s 3 1/2-year-old son, Silo, features a bold yellow wall and brightly colored fabrics and furnishings. “I do think it’s good for kids to be around color, and I’d rather approach a kid’s room that way—with color—than with a theme like jungles or Curious George.” The timeless design has allowed the space to transition from a nursery with a crib to a toddler room with a “big-boy bed” that belonged to Keobounpheng as a child. “I still remember when my parents bought it for me,” she says of the trundle bed from Finnish manufacturer Muurame.

Bedding with a fun number pattern updates the scheme for Silo. “And we added the leaf canopy to create a little bit of an intimate space for him when he’s sleeping, a sense of enclosure,” Keobounpheng says. These items, as well as the room’s striped rugs and curtains, came from IKEA, where Keobounpheng worked for three years as an interior designer. Although it was a gift, the corrugated-plastic rocking chair, designed by Ron Arad for Vitra, is a splurge by comparison (current price: $700). “Between my experience at IKEA and at Red Lure Red [an upscale Minneapolis furniture/housewares shop, now closed], I have a well-rounded perspective on furniture—how you can take higher-end design products and mix them with the practicality of IKEA products and things you already have.”

Silo loves the resulting look. “He’s been in there since he was a baby, but when we brought the bed in and painted the wall yellow and put up the stickers, that was exciting,” Keobounpheng says. “For a long time, every night before he’d go to bed, he’d point to the stickers and say, ‘I really like these.’ ”