classic modern style
international influences
mixing periods, regions
innovative approach
thoughtful service
translating personalities into homes...

ABOUT MARY RUBINO

Mary Rubino, owner of Mary Rubino Interiors, Inc, is a self-taught interior decorator whose goal is to create high-end, residential spaces that are visually inviting.

Living in Italy and traveling throughout Europe and Asia greatly influenced Mary Rubino's attitude toward design. Exposure to non-Anglo Saxon cultures taught her that in creating a home which satisfies the soul, aesthetics and function both can, and indeed must, matter in equal proportions. Her anti-decorating style is refreshingly simple yet sumptuous.

Mary Rubino believes in living fully in the present, not in the distant past, nor in the far future. That means using your good things daily, NOT saving them for your grandchildren; furnishing your home as a place to live, not a museum to visit; and creating a space that's sensible as well as beautiful.

Simple sheers on the windows, with fuss-less second layers, fabrics that breathe, not showing every mark, classic frames for the furnishings, colors used with boldness for variety and warmth, and patterns and textures many-layered or one alone, to achieve a depth of feeling... Always the overall effect is relaxed.

Warm, rugged, natural, earthy, classic, modern, anything that defines today is her style.... and translating your nature into your home space is her trademark.

She began decorating friends' homes in 1996, opened her design firm in 1997, and incorporated in 2000. Residential projects have been published in The Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine and North Shore magazine. She has also been featured in the Chicago Magazine Home Issues and The Franklin Report of Chicago.

Prior to opening her own design firm, she worked for Baker Furniture and Luminaire in Chicago. She studied economics and psychology at Brown University and did graduate studies in cultural anthropology at the University of Chicago and at the University of Bologna in Italy.

Residential projects include condominiums and homes in New York City, Chicago and Chicago’s surrounding suburbs. Contract work in Chicago and the North Shore. She has done pro bono work for St. Athanasius Parish and the Round Table in Evanston, IL, and the Jane Adams Hull House in Chicago.