The Oval Office Gets a Makeover
Posted on September 1, 2010
The Oval Office get a makeover while President Barack Obama was on vacation on Martha's Vineyard. The new look includes fresh wallpaper (which we quite like), tables, chairs and a new rug. It's a lot of beige, we must say. The rug is new -- it's not an antique or anything -- and we can't figure out why it doesn't have any color in it.
Most hilarious detail: even the president of the United States uses those hideous (but most useful) hard plastic mats under his office chair so he can swivel around when he wants to. That's a very nice Remington bronze over by the wall. Richard A. Reed, Special Assistant to the President for Homeland Security, looks incredibly uncomfortable sitting in one of the two chairs that sit on either side of the presidential desk.
But back to that boring rug (they should have gone for burgundy or red, we think. that would have gone nicely with the cream wallpaper and the dark wood). The rug is made of 25 percent recycled wool. It was produced and donated by the Scott Group of Grand Rapids, Michigan, who also made Bill Clinton's Oval Office rug. In the center is the presidential seal and there are inspirational quotes around the border from famous Americans. That's an interesting touch. The quotes are:
"Government of the people, by the people and for the people" - Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
"No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings" - John F. Kennedy.
"The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally on the welfare of all of us" - Teddy Roosevelt.
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" - from FDR's inaugural speech.
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" -- Obama's favorite Martin Luther King quotation.
The Resolute Desk, built from the timbers of a British warship, is the same. It was a gift to President Rutherford B. Hayes. President Kennedy dragged it out of storage and it hasn't been changed since. The brown leather swivel office chair (super ugly and not very presidential) is new. The two other brown chairs were there during President Bush's term, but they were recovered with brown leather. The sofas are new and were custom made. Take a look:
You can see an interesting series of photographs showing recent presidents' choice of office chairs here. It looks like the plastic chair mat tradition goes all the way back to the Eisenhower administration.