Washington:
The Oval Office has gotten a makeover.
When US President Barack Obama addresses the nation on Iraq on Tuesday night, he will do so from newly redecorated digs. The look, which includes new and reupholstered furniture and new paint and wallpaper, is more modern and tends toward neutral hues of brown and taupe, rather than the gold and yellow tones favored by his predecessor, George W Bush.
Gone is the sunburst rug that Mr Bush loved so much; designed by his wife, Laura, he used to say it evoked a spirit of optimism. In its place is a more muted, mostly wheat and cream-colored carpet featuring the presidential seal in the center, and ringed on its edge with five quotations selected by Mr Obama - four from former presidents (Lincoln, Kennedy and both Roosevelts) and one from the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
Mr Bush's yellow brocade couches have been replaced with two custom-made sofas of brown cotton that resembles velvet. They face a boxy table, fashioned from American walnut and mica, that features a fruit bowl - not flowers - as its centerpiece. There is a lone navy blue pillow on one of the couches, which pulls in the blue from some new, modern table lamps.
The new wallpaper is striped, gold and yellow, but the pictures - portraits of Lincoln and Washington - have remained, as has the grandfather clock. Mr Obama reupholstered Mr Bush's two mahogany chairs and kept the desk, called the Resolute, that every chief executive since Rutherford B Hayes -- with the exception of Johnson, Nixon and Ford -- has used.
The makeover was not done at taxpayer expense; the White House said the costs were covered by the White House Historical Association, a nonprofit group, through a contribution from the committee that paid for Mr Obama's inauguration. The White House is not saying how much the redesign cost, except to say that it was ''in line with'' what Mr Obama's two most recent predecessors spent. The rug was made and donated by the Scott Group, a carpet maker headquartered in Grand Rapids, Mich., that had made the rug designed for President Bill Clinton, the White House said.
But given the hard economic times facing the nation, Mr Obama is bound to face questions about the redo. When he arrived for work at the White House in January last year, he said he thought the office was fine and saw no need to redecorate.
These are the quotations the president chose for his rug:
When US President Barack Obama addresses the nation on Iraq on Tuesday night, he will do so from newly redecorated digs. The look, which includes new and reupholstered furniture and new paint and wallpaper, is more modern and tends toward neutral hues of brown and taupe, rather than the gold and yellow tones favored by his predecessor, George W Bush.
Gone is the sunburst rug that Mr Bush loved so much; designed by his wife, Laura, he used to say it evoked a spirit of optimism. In its place is a more muted, mostly wheat and cream-colored carpet featuring the presidential seal in the center, and ringed on its edge with five quotations selected by Mr Obama - four from former presidents (Lincoln, Kennedy and both Roosevelts) and one from the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
Mr Bush's yellow brocade couches have been replaced with two custom-made sofas of brown cotton that resembles velvet. They face a boxy table, fashioned from American walnut and mica, that features a fruit bowl - not flowers - as its centerpiece. There is a lone navy blue pillow on one of the couches, which pulls in the blue from some new, modern table lamps.
The new wallpaper is striped, gold and yellow, but the pictures - portraits of Lincoln and Washington - have remained, as has the grandfather clock. Mr Obama reupholstered Mr Bush's two mahogany chairs and kept the desk, called the Resolute, that every chief executive since Rutherford B Hayes -- with the exception of Johnson, Nixon and Ford -- has used.
The makeover was not done at taxpayer expense; the White House said the costs were covered by the White House Historical Association, a nonprofit group, through a contribution from the committee that paid for Mr Obama's inauguration. The White House is not saying how much the redesign cost, except to say that it was ''in line with'' what Mr Obama's two most recent predecessors spent. The rug was made and donated by the Scott Group, a carpet maker headquartered in Grand Rapids, Mich., that had made the rug designed for President Bill Clinton, the White House said.
But given the hard economic times facing the nation, Mr Obama is bound to face questions about the redo. When he arrived for work at the White House in January last year, he said he thought the office was fine and saw no need to redecorate.
These are the quotations the president chose for his rug:
- "The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself" - President Franklin D. Roosevelt
- "The Arc of the Moral Universe Is Long, But It Bends Towards Justice" - Martin Luther King Jr.
- "Government of the People, By the People, For the People" - President Abraham Lincoln
- "No Problem of Human Destiny Is Beyond Human Beings" - President John F. Kennedy
- "The Welfare of Each of Us Is Dependent Fundamentally Upon the Welfare of All of Us" - President Theodore Roosevelt
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