La Grange, Illinois
Dara Agruss Design is a full-service interior design studio working on whole-home projects, gut renovations and new construction in La Grange and across Chicago's western suburbs.
We take on a small number of projects each year so they get our full attention: millwork drawn to the inch, fabrics chosen in person, and an install day when the whole house comes together. Our studio is about twenty minutes north in Elmhurst.
Recent work
The same team works across DuPage County, western Cook County and Chicago.
Before & after
Older La Grange houses reward editing rather than tearing out. Existing millwork, refinished and restyled, can carry an entire room without a structural change.
What we do
Most of our La Grange clients come to us for the whole house, not a single room. Full-service means we carry the project from the first floor plan to the day the last lamp is placed:
You make the decisions that matter to you. We handle the several hundred that don't.
How we work
The same process for every La Grange project, whether it's one room or an entire new build.
A short conversation about your home, your timeline and the scope you have in mind. We tell you honestly whether we're the right studio for it.
We walk your home, measure, photograph and talk through how each room actually needs to work for the people in it.
Floor plans, elevations, renderings, finishes and a complete furniture plan, presented together, room by room, in one sitting.
We place every order, track every lead time, receive and inspect every piece, and coordinate directly with your builder and trades.
Everything arrives, gets placed and gets styled. You leave in the morning and come home to a finished house.
La Grange houses
La Grange's historic district runs from the walkable downtown out through blocks of Queen Anne Victorians, American Foursquares and Craftsman bungalows from the 1870s to the 1920s. Original woodwork, deep front porches, stair halls built for a slower way of moving through a house. The bones are already there.
Beyond the historic core, La Grange Highlands adds mid-century ranches and split-levels, and newer construction fills the gaps. That range means the design approach shifts block to block. What a 1905 Victorian needs is not what a 1965 ranch or a 2024 build wants.
Full-service means we handle the entire project: space planning, custom millwork and cabinetry, furniture, upholstery, window treatments, finishes, lighting, art and accessories, plus ordering, receiving, delivery coordination and installation. You make the decisions that matter to you; we manage everything behind them.
We work through trade-only showrooms, workrooms and artisans that aren't open to the public, which is where most of the character in a project comes from. See everything included in our services →
Yes. Much of La Grange's original housing stock: Queen Anne Victorians, Foursquares and Craftsman bungalows in and around the historic district. These come with original millwork, plaster walls and rooms that were designed to be separate. We design around that character rather than stripping it out.
Where a period house has to work harder for how a family actually lives, we solve it with built-in millwork and furniture planning before we consider taking down walls.
Yes. For new builds we come in during framing to select finishes, lighting, plumbing, cabinetry and millwork before anything is ordered. Involving a designer at that stage prevents the change orders that derail a build later.
We work directly with your builder so the interior decisions land on the construction schedule rather than after it.
Also serving
The same team works across DuPage County, western Cook County and Chicago.
