Interior designer Magda Rauscher, founder of My Modern Dom, faced her most personal project yet: the renovation of her own home. “We lived in Glencoe, Illinois for over 7 years before buying our current home,” she tells us. “We loved our old home, but during Covid both my husband and I were working at home much more than pre-Covid. I had just started my own business and often ended up working on our dining room table. Soon there were samples everywhere and we realized we really needed an extra room.”
When this 1924 Colonial home came on the market, it had space for two offices in the attic, an abundance natural light, and tons of charm. It required a gut rehab, but Magda was excited to make it their own. “I wanted to stay true to the architecture of the house but also wanted it to feel a bit more modern,” she explains. “I tried to enhance what I thought were the best features of the house—the windows and the light—and to try to build on the charm that was already here.”
As she reimagined each room, they ran into a few hurdles. “Mostly dealing with things that you can’t see,” she laughs. “Isn’t that how it always goes? We found out the house didn’t have any footings and since we were digging out the basement to convert it from a six-foot unusable space into a finished area with a guest bedroom, family room, and exercise area. We had to go about the entire process in a different way than originally planned.”
It took nine months from permits to move-in, and Magda credits the details for making the design. “I love that you still feel like the bones of the home are old, and it feels lived in even though the inside is entirely updated,” she says with a smile. “We went with a warm cream on all the trim (Farrow & Ball Pointing), and it feels as though that color has been here for years. We used unlacquered brass door hardware, which has already started to patina beautifully and feels like it came with the house. All the little details that I spent way too much time on paid off and I truly feel like we were able to retain all the character that we fell in love with while completely updating it to give us all the modern-day features to make it work for our family.”
Take a tour in the slideshow.