What It's Really Like to Live in the White House, According to Presidents

Table Of Content

• It's Time to Act Against Antisemitic Behavior on Campus
• Redondo Beach
• Chants of ‘shame on you’ greet guests at White House correspondents’ dinner shadowed by war in Gaza
• Presidential and First Lady Portraits
• Center Hall, East Sitting Hall, and Grand Stair
• MORE: Joe, Jill Biden move crib into White House, more details on how they're settling in

That galling torch-and-run — talk about a Brexit — forced Madison and his wife Dolley into a grand old mansion down the street, the Octagon House, and prompted some discussion on whether to rebuild the White House at all. Indeed, politicians mulled moving the seat of government out of D.C. But it's not as if the president of the United States has to live in the White House. Although with everything there, and a commute like that — the West Wing is a few steps from the main residence — the live-work-play setup has thus far proven impossible to turn down. Although the president is permitted a $100,000 stipend to redecorate parts of the White House, anything beyond that is something they have to pay for themselves. According to the podcast Stuff You Missed in History Class, the Obamas didn’t take the stipend and used their own money to redecorate instead.

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It's Time to Act Against Antisemitic Behavior on Campus

A cool palette of charcoal, pale grays, and creams creates a clean backdrop and contrast for contemporary woven furniture. So, Medicaid currently pays $125 billion a year to home healthcare companies, which is hundreds of thousands of workers. However, before this change in the system, which means forever, home care companies were not required to report how their federal dollars were being spent. Second, our announcement is about a new requirement to help increase pay for home healthcare workers. (Applause.)  And so, that means a new requirement to help raise pay for home healthcare workers. It means more loneliness when we’re talking about anyone from our seniors to people with disabilities who are in those homes and who want and enjoy the interactions that they have with these care workers.

Redondo Beach

A gilded Louis XVI mirror propped on a Holland & Company table anchors the entry hall. Davenport's collection of blue-and-white porcelain from the Mews was inspired by her mother. "The dining room light is great during the day, and then the room takes on a totally different feel when we entertain at night," says designer Brooke Davenport of her Los Angeles home. A mix of seating — a pair of 18th-century Swedish chairs from JF Chen, a trio by Dan Marty Design slipcovered in Glant linen — surrounds a custom table.

Chants of ‘shame on you’ greet guests at White House correspondents’ dinner shadowed by war in Gaza

Contrary to a popular myth that the building was painted white to hide scorch marks after the fire in 1814, the residence was first painted white in 1798 to protect the exterior from weather damage. The White House kitchen has the capacity to prepare dinner for 140 guests and hors d’oeuvres for over 1,000. The Committee for the Preservation of the White House, founded by President Lyndon Johnson, approves any changes to the State Rooms of the White House. "I don't know about you all, but I was raised in a way that you didn't look for anybody to wait on you," he said during a CNN town hall in February 2021, ABC News reported.

Presidential and First Lady Portraits

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But whoever takes office, ever since Adams first crossed the threshold in 1800, lives there eventually. The White House and grounds cover just over 18 acres (about 7.3 hectares). Before the construction of the North Portico, most public events were entered from the South Lawn, the grading and planting of which was ordered by Thomas Jefferson.

Louis Comfort Tiffany was asked to send selected designers to assist. Over twenty wagonloads of furniture and household items were removed from the building and sold at a public auction.[57] All that was saved were bust portraits of John Adams and Martin Van Buren.[58] A proposal was made to build a new residence south of the White House, but it failed to gain support. Less than fifty years after the Roosevelt renovation, the White House was already showing signs of serious structural weakness. President Harry S. Truman began a renovation of the building in which everything but the outer walls was dismantled. The reconstruction was overseen by architect Lorenzo Winslow, and in 1952, the Truman family moved back into the White House. Between Obama’s departure and Trump’s arrival, the residence staff had just five hours to transform the private quarters.

A blister formed on a toe and festered, and the infection turned septic. No one knows what exactly occurred between Pierce and the Fox sisters. But the White House session may have mirrored the Fox sisters’ other séances, which commenced with guests sitting in a circle, holding one another’s hands, and reciting a prayer. Then, the rappings would begin, and the sisters would allegedly lift the veil on the spirit world.

Nine proposals were submitted for the new presidential residence with the award going to Irish-American architect James Hoban. Capitol and the White House.[17] Hoban was born in Ireland and trained at the Dublin Society of Arts. He emigrated to the U.S. after the American Revolution, first seeking work in Philadelphia and later finding success in South Carolina, where he designed the state capitol in Columbia. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt began a major renovation of the White House, including the relocation of the President’s offices from the Second Floor of the Residence to the newly constructed temporary Executive Office Building (now known as the West Wing).

MORE: Joe, Jill Biden move crib into White House, more details on how they're settling in

"I like the serenity of pure white linens and very soft, muted colors," Davenport says of the master bedroom. The custom headboard is upholstered in a Scalamandré linen, and the Minotti chaise longue is covered in a Donghia fabric. And so, the two announcements that we are making today recognize that we owe you, those workers, so much more than applauding you. And the majority of federally funded nursing homes are understaffed.

The ground floor originally housed service areas, but now includes the Diplomatic Reception Room, the White House Library, the Map Room, the Vermeil Room, and the China Room. The State Floor features some of the White House’s most treasured spaces, including the East Room, the Blue, Red, and Green Rooms, the State Dining Room, and the Family Dining Room. The move unfolded at a rapid but methodical pace, with boxes upon boxes stacked and transferred between the historic rooms. “The White House is not big,” another career White House employee, whom I will call Jason, said.

The Roosevelt renovation was planned and carried out by the famous New York architectural firm McKim, Mead and White. Roosevelt’s successor, President William Howard Taft, had the Oval Office constructed within an enlarged office wing. The second floor contains the private living apartments of the first family, as well as a kitchen. Some of these rooms are used for official entertaining, but most are reserved for private use. Rooms found on the second floor include the Center Hall, East Sitting Hall, Lincoln Bedroom, Lincoln Sitting Room, President's Dining Room, Queens' Bedroom, Queens' Sitting Room, Treaty Room, West Sitting Hall, and Yellow Oval Room.

Located at the country’s most well-known address, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave in Washington, DC, the White House is America’s most iconic home. The official residence and office of the president of the United States, the White House has been the home of every president since John Adams and the site of some of the most important events in American history. Before Inauguration Day, the White House residence staff were already exhausted. For several weeks, many of them had worked sixteen-hour days preparing for the transition—the approximately six-hour-long window between when the Trumps would depart and the Bidens arrive.

According to Shanks, the shift in relations between the First Families and lifers has changed the feeling of the White House. “The Obamas and the Trumps were the first Administrations when the residence was considered the upper floors and not the entire building. For us, it’s always been that the ‘home’ was from ‘basement to the sniper on the roof,’ ” Shanks said. “It doesn’t have the concept of the home of the First Family that it used to, but, again, that’s more societal.” Now it feels more like the public rooms are a museum or a convention center. In the twenty-first century, Shanks suggested, the White House became a sound set—events are less about the impression they will make on the people attending them and more about the buzz they will create online.

On January 6, 1853, newly elected president Franklin Pierce and his wife Jane experienced every parent’s worst nightmare. Their only surviving child, 11-year-old Bennie, died in a horrific train accident in Massachusetts. From Mary Todd Lincoln to Jane Pierce, they were swept up in the spiritualism movement of the 19th century—a belief that living souls can contact the dead. Presenting the fashion equivalent of a united front were Sophia Bush and Ashlyn Harris, making their red carpet debut as a couple in matching Harbison looks, as well as Scarlett Johansson and her husband Colin Jost, in coordinating Giorgio Armani. Once a popular target of jokes about bad fashion (and not just from the evening’s featured comedian host), the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner has morphed in recent years into a less campy, more staid prelude to the Met Gala, which takes place days later. It’s only fitting, really, given the subtext of journalists being jailed around the world.

In some instances, the president has to pay for their own legal fees. This was the case for Bill and Hillary Clinton, who left the White House $16 million in debt, NBC News reports. Between the defense attorneys’ fees for scandal investigations and the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton, the legal costs mounted throughout his eight-year presidency, according to NPR. Find out 13 things most Americans get wrong about impeachment. My predecessor promised infrastructure week every week for four years, but never built a damn thing. My bipartisan infrastructure law has now launched over 51,000 projects across every state and territory in America.

In the frantic final hour, another lifer opened Sasha Obama’s bedroom closet and groaned, because it was still filled with the teen-ager’s clothes. The three-level southern façade combines Palladian and neoclassical architectural styles. The south portico was completed in 1824.[33] At the center of the southern façade is a neoclassical projected bow of three bays. The bow is flanked by five bays, the windows of which, as on the north façade, have alternating segmented and pointed pediments at first-floor level.