A Visit to the 2025 Southern Living Idea House

A simple frame covered in Thibaut fabric for a custom look.

This week I had the pleasure of visiting the 2025 Southern Living Idea House in Charlottesville, VA. Designed by famed interior designer Charlotte Moss, the house is chock full of high design details like custom rugs, drapes and upholstered goods, vintage and antique (like, real antique) pieces and original art. Included with the ticket is a very generous Style Guide which lists every source used in the home from furniture, fabric, paint color and light fixtures to the art on the walls. Reading through the sources in the guide provides a glimpse into how these rooms are designed and what it takes to create beautiful, unique spaces. 

What struck me as a consumer is that you don’t see any traditional furniture retailers like Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, Serena and Lily, Crate and Barrel or West Elm anywhere in the Style Guide. Granted many of those stores don’t align with her aesthetic, but it also further illustrates where top tier designers choose to source from when showcasing their best work. The answer custom, custom, custom. It makes for a high design aesthetic that while warm and welcoming, cannot easily be replicated.

The Company Store sheets used for the upholstery and bedding create a matching effect.

Each room included an accessible moment with a DIY or more mass retailer piece, but the take away for me was that those were the exceptions. These are often the components that are highlighted which can sometimes be misleading about what really goes into a room like this. There was a World Market floor covering in the children’s bathroom, a Ballard Designs shelf in the studio area and L.L. Bean sheets used as drapes in the closet. I appreciated the nod to accessibility, but some of these high-low moments were also used in custom way such as the mirror from Lowe's covered with Thibaut fabric and a bed upholstered in sheets from The Company Store, which is actually a genius if you know a good upholsterer. It was a thought-provoking trip about what it means to design a house and the different approaches one can take for sourcing. Over the coming weeks, I’ll explore more of the considered design choices and what they convey. In the meantime, enjoy my amateur pictures.