You know the room. Everybody’s got one.
Maybe it’s the great room with the gorgeous lake view and the furniture that’s floating in the middle like it got lost on the way to somewhere else. Maybe it’s the bonus room over the garage that’s been “the bonus room” for six years because nobody can decide what it is. Maybe you just closed on a new build in Denver and you’re standing in an empty house with a selections deadline and a knot in your stomach.
And here’s the part nobody warns you about: you don’t know who to call.
You Google “interior designer near me” and get forty-something names. Some have thirty reviews, some have none, half of them don’t say where they’re located, and three of them appear to be the same company listed under different names. So you close the tab and live with the floating furniture for another year.
I get it. I’ve been there myself.
Why the closet lady is writing about interior designers
I mean, it’s a fair question.
I spend my days in people’s closets and pantries and garages. I’m not the person picking your drapery fabric. But I’m often standing in a house next to the person who is, and over the years I’ve gotten to see who’s good at this. Who listens. Who calls you back. Who tells you the truth about your budget instead of nodding along and hoping you don’t notice until the invoice shows up.
Givers gain. That’s always been how I see it. So this is my honest attempt to save you a Saturday of Googling.
One thing I’ll be straight about: I have not personally worked alongside every single person on this list. Some of these folks I know well. Some I know by reputation and by their reviews. I put this together from what’s publicly out there plus what I hear around the lake, and I cleaned it up so you’re not wading through duplicate listings and companies that are actually an hour and a half away. Nobody paid to be on here. If somebody’s missing, tell me and I’ll add them.
The most-reviewed designers around the lake
Reviews aren’t everything. But when somebody’s got forty people who took the time to write about their experience, that tells you something real about consistency.
Zachary Luke Designs — 4.6 stars, 42 reviews, 10+ years. (704) 763-0391. One client said his knowledge made the whole process easy and fun, which is not a word people usually attach to a renovation.
CoCreative Interiors — 5.0, 38 reviews, Huntersville, 5+ years. (704) 218-9197. The reviews keep using the phrase “dream rooms,” and honestly that’s the whole job description.
Domaine Interiors Charlotte — 4.8, 33 reviews, 20+ years. (704) 962-2315. Two decades in this market is a lot of houses.
Melissa Rieser Interiors — 5.0, 30 reviews, 10+ years. (704) 859-2825. A client called her talented, creative, efficient, responsive, and possessed of impeccable taste. That’s five things and most designers are lucky to nail three.
Home, Heart & Soul — 4.7, 29 reviews, Cornelius, 10+ years. (704) 458-6464. They do onsite services, which matters more than you’d think.
Lilly & Grace — 5.0, 26 reviews, Mooresville. (980) 447-9930. Customer-focused shows up over and over in their reviews.
Home Theory — 5.0, 25 reviews, 5+ years. (980) 866-5175. Kitchens seem to be their thing — one review specifically calls out a space that was both amazing and functional. I love that word. Functional is where I live.
Great Design 4 U — 5.0, 23 reviews, Mooresville, 15+ years. (704) 305-0139. Décor, lighting, “really anything to make a home a home,” per one client.
Sutton Place Design and Build — 5.0, 21 reviews, 40+ years in business. (704) 883-4822. Forty years. I’m no spring chicken, but that makes me feel downright youthful.
Freshwater Design & Build — 4.9, 20 reviews, Mooresville, 7+ years. (704) 677-7110. Karen and her team “left no detail behind in every inch of our home,” which is the kind of review you can’t buy.
Kathryn Lilly Interiors — 4.6, 20 reviews, Cornelius, 10+ years. (704) 361-6250.
Who’s where
Because sometimes you just want somebody who can swing by on a Tuesday.
Cornelius
- Artistic Interior Design (5.0, 13 reviews, 10+ years, 704-274-3606)
- Kathryn Lilly Interiors (4.6, 20) · Home, Heart & Soul (4.7, 29)
- Modern Luxe Interior Design (5.0, 7, 704-412-1530)
- CR Interior Design & Home Staging (5.0, 9, 704-726-9542)
- Dobson Interiors (5.0, 2, 704-781-8377)
- The Shoppe by Dominique DeLaney (4.3, 6)
- Cici Moss Interiors at The Lake House (704-897-7525)
- Lake Norman Home Staging and Design (805-441-9191)
Mooresville
- Freshwater Design & Build (4.9, 20)
- Lilly & Grace (5.0, 26)
- Great Design 4 U (5.0, 23)
- Exit Stage Right LKN (5.0, 6, 704-267-7353)
- Modern Dream Designs (5.0, 2, 704-230-6038)
Huntersville
- CoCreative Interiors (5.0, 38)
- DKS Design LLC (5.0, 5, 712-307-2475)
Davidson
- Lake Norman Design Group (224-999-5454, onsite services)
- Knotty and Board Decor and Gifts Boutique (4.6, 19, 704-618-2894) — worth knowing this one’s a retail décor shop rather than a full-service design firm, and a really good one for finishing touches
Denver and the west side
Mc Farland Design Group (4.8, 18, 15+ years, 980-722-1726) — architectural designer, so this is your call if you’re changing the bones of the house, not just the finishes
Serving the whole lake, no storefront
- MK Interior Design Co (5.0, 13)
- Fahey Designs–Decorating Den Interiors (5.0, 15, 704-450-8077)
- Brenna Morgan Interiors (5.0, 7, 704-777-3937)
- Linda Griffeth Interiors (5.0, 7, 704-650-9511)
- Refined by Rose (5.0, 7, 704-885-8044)
- MPB Design Co (5.0, 7)
- Sanctuary and Sage (5.0, 8, 704-572-2226)
- Kurtz Design (5.0, 4, 330-618-0902)
- Common Ground Designs (5.0, 2, 704-492-3046) ·
- aylor Hall Interior Design (5.0, 2)
- J Mozeley Interior Decorating, Design & Staging (5.0, 2, 704-966-1223)
- RES Interiors (5.0, 2, 704-500-9198)
- Enchanted Journey Design (5.0, 2, 980-900-9707)
- Ally Whalen Design (15+ years, 704-604-5005)
- Karen Viscito Interiors · Clarissa Oleksowicz Designs · Living Bright Interiors (4.2, 10)
- LKN Interiors (704-491-9982)
- Heaven Sings Interior Design Studio (704-747-8486)
- McCann Custom Interiors
- Homestyles Interior Design (704-906-7469)
- Southern Decadence Design (434-865-3869)
Worth the drive to Charlotte
- D.Nicole Design Studio (5.0, 24, 980-428-6115)
- Emerald & Oak Design (5.0, 23, 704-595-3555)
- Ashley DeLapp Interior Design (5.0, 12, 704-307-4949) — she’s a modern maximalist studio, so if you’ve been quietly wanting more color and pattern than your neighbors have, that’s your person.
If you’re selling, that’s a different phone call
Staging is its own skill. It’s not decorating and it’s not design — it’s making a house read well to a stranger in eleven seconds.
- Centerpiece Home Staging (Cornelius)
- CR Interior Design & Home Staging (Cornelius)\
- Lake Norman Home Staging and Design (Cornelius)
- Exit Stage Right LKN (Mooresville)
- Sanctuary and Sage
- J Mozeley
And I’ll tell you what I tell everybody: buyers open closets. They just do. It’s the nosiest, most honest part of a showing, and a packed closet quietly whispers “this house doesn’t have enough storage” even when it absolutely does.
If you’re moving walls, not just furniture
Some projects need a design-build outfit or a contractor, not a decorator, and it’s better to know that before you’re three meetings in.
- Freshwater Design & Build (Mooresville)
- Sutton Place Design and Build (40+ years)
- Custom Interiors in Cornelius (5.0, 3, listed as a contractor, 704-892-4040)
- Lifestyle Interiors and Design (5.0, 13, also a contractor, 240-215-5146)
- Mc Farland Design Group in Denver (architectural designer)
The newer studios I’d keep an eye on
Everybody starts somewhere. These folks have fewer reviews, but that’s usually about how long they’ve had a shingle out, not how good they are.
- Dobson Interiors
- Modern Luxe Interior Design
- DKS Design LLC
- MPB Design Co
- Modern Dream Designs
- Cici Moss Interiors at The Lake House
- Lake Norman Design Group
- Common Ground Designs
- Enchanted Journey Design
One review of Dobson Interiors says her talent and passion “breathed genuine life into our home,” and one of Enchanted Journey Design mentions turning a basic builder closet into a showstopper — which, well. You know where I stand on that one.
Okay, so how do you actually pick?
This is the part people ask me about at parties, so here’s what I’d tell you standing in your kitchen.
Look at the work, not the reputation. A designer with a hundred glowing reviews and a portfolio full of coastal blue and shiplap is going to be miserable making you a moody, layered, jewel-toned library. And you’re going to be miserable, too. Scroll their photos until you see your house in there somewhere.
Ask how they charge, out loud, in the first meeting. Flat fee, hourly, cost-plus, percentage of the project — they’re all legitimate, and they produce wildly different invoices. Nobody good will be offended by the question. If somebody gets cagey about money, that’s your answer right there.
Ask who they know. In this market, a designer’s relationships with builders, trades, and permitting are worth real money to you, especially on the water. Waterfront work has rules. You want somebody who already knows them.
Get the change-order policy in writing. Because you will change your mind. Everybody changes their mind. It’s not a character flaw, it’s a renovation.
And tell them what you actually do all day. This is the one I feel strongly about. The best designers in this business are doing what I’d call solution selling — they interview you first, and then they design. If you eat dinner at the island every night, if your kids do homework at the dining table, if you and your spouse have wildly different bedtimes, say so. That’s the information that turns a pretty room into a room that works.
Because a beautiful room that fights you every day isn’t a beautiful room. It just photographs well.
The part where I put in a plug, but gently
Here’s the thing I’ve noticed after all these years: people spend months agonizing over the room everybody sees and about eleven minutes on the spaces that actually run their morning.
You can have a stunning primary suite and still start every day doing laps — shower, bedroom for socks, back to the bathroom for your hair, over to the closet, back to the bed to lay it all out. That’s travel time, and you’re logging it before you’ve had coffee. All that visual clutter and back-and-forth just makes you crazy, and most people don’t even notice it because they’ve been doing it for years.
The good news is it’s fixable, and usually with less than you’d think. A couple of drawers in the right spot. A rod at a height that makes sense for what you actually own. Room to grow, so next season doesn’t blow the whole thing up.
You don’t know you need it until you have it. And then you can’t imagine how you lived without it.
So if you hire one of these designers and you get to the closet or the pantry or the garage and think hm, I want this one done right — call us. Or don’t, and just tell your designer we’re happy to work with them, because most of them already know us and we like it that way.
Either way, I hope this list saves you some time. Go fix that room. You’ll feel better every single day, and that’s really the whole point.
