Chicago, Illinois
Dara Agruss Design is a full-service interior design studio working on whole-home projects, gut renovations and new construction in Chicago and the 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.
Recent work
Whole-home projects, gut renovations and new construction, designed, sourced and installed by our studio.
Before & after
Older homes are usually worth more than the finish they are wearing. Solid built-in cabinetry can be refinished and restyled into something that reads as current without losing a single original detail.
What we do
Most of our Chicago 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 Chicago 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.
Chicago homes
Chicago's residential character is largely stone. The greystones built between roughly 1890 and 1930 from Bedford limestone survive in their greatest concentration in Lincoln Park, along streets like Orchard, Burling and Cleveland, and they come with the things that make old buildings both wonderful and difficult: deep bays, tall ceilings, ornate stonework and long narrow floor plates.
The Gold Coast adds pre-war co-ops where 1920s proportions meet strict building rules about what can be changed and when work can happen. Newer high-rise homes have the opposite problem: glass, light and volume, but no architecture to push against. Each needs a different starting point.
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. Vintage city homes come with deep bays, tall ceilings, original stonework and long narrow floor plans. We design around those bones rather than flattening them, and plan for the realities of plaster, radiators and rooms that were laid out for a different way of living.
In co-ops and vintage buildings we also plan around building rules: approved work windows, elevator bookings and alteration agreements, because those constraints shape the schedule as much as the design does.
Yes. Our studio is in Elmhurst, about twenty-five minutes from the west side of the city, and a meaningful share of our work is in Chicago. Deliveries, receiving and installation are handled by our team the same way they are in the suburbs.
For city projects we plan logistics early: loading docks, service elevators and certificates of insurance, so install day is a single coordinated day rather than a series of partial deliveries.
Also serving
The same team works across DuPage County, western Cook County and Chicago.
