Mocha Mediocrity.
Just like The 0ne.
Posted on 09/02/2010 10:11:47 AM PDT by Nachum
WASHINGTON - President Obama's Oval Office has had a face-lift with a New York accent.
The office has undergone a top-to-bottom makeover, highlighted by handmade striped wallpaper from Amagansett in the Hamptons.
The President's brown leather desk chair, coffee table made of American walnut and mica, custom-made couches and two new table lamps with blue ceramic bases were all crafted by New York manufacturers.
The White House treated the identities of the Empire State companies who produced the furnishings like state secrets, declining to further identify them.
The price tag for the redo also was not disclosed, but interior design experts gave the Daily News a guesstimate of $20,000.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Cue up 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous'. Worst economy since the great depression and the Oval office gets a redo. His friends in NYC make a sale.
It's good to be the king!
The list, ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
I’m surprised it doesn’t look like an Arab tent.
The couches and coffee table, not so hot, but at least they can be replaced easily when B & M move on.
Mocha Mediocrity.
Just like The 0ne.
NY= a North Yemen feel to it.
Very true, if by "distinct NY accent" being decor that reminds one of the "Greeting Room" of an 1890's New York Bordello....
is that the Oval Office or the lobby of the Marriott Inn in Albuquerque?
Bric-a-Barack.
Here's Clinton's (hope they threw that rug out - eew.)
H.W. Bush.
I swear to you that I had that coffee table in the 50’s.
I guess so. If the voice of the Days Inn hotel lobby is from NY.
I think Kenneth R. Bazinet just insulted New York.
...or a New Orleans whore house.
Reagan
You want to bet?!
Those 'customized' couches cost about half of that or maybe even more. I know they look like crap but that doesn't mean that some 'designer' didn't make a fortune on them.
It’s CHEESY CHIC.
When I first met my husband; he had that same coffee table in Obama’s office or pretty much like it. He got it from a rent to own place.
Cheesy chic.
I like it all exceot the coffee table....but why is his desk always empty?
Who is producing clever papers in the Hamptons right now?
A group called Crezana ( http://www.crezana.com/ )based in Southampton does exquisite hand-embroidered and hand-painted papers, and has a killer client list… like the White House.
Client List:
The White House
http://www.crezana.com/clients.html
Good find.
I hate the couches, the wallpaper, the blue lamps, the coffee table and the rug. Other than that it looks fine.
It has sort of a Soviet look to it...
Yeah. 20th century boring.
The design was the work of Michael S. Smith, the Los Angeles decorator who did the private quarters of the White House for the Obamas. Reached on a plane yesterday, Smith said, ‘I just can’t talk about my clients.’
Okay, fine. But although his name was not officially uttered by White House officials, lots of people were tweeting and blogging and buzzing about it all, including the Scott Group in Grand Rapids, Mich., maker of the new environmentally friendly Oval Office rug, whose design, ringed with weighty quotations, is credited to Smith. And Elizabeth Dow’s Amagansett, N.Y., studio hand-painted the cafe-au-lait-and-buff wallpaper, complete with three-inch-wide stripes. Said Dow, ‘It was specified by Michael Smith, who is the interior design visionary on the project.’
A spokeswoman for the Scott Group would not give out the rug’s price, but she confirmed that the company donated it to the project. (The past four administrations’ Oval Office rugs have cost between $28,550 and $61,000 apiece.) The White House explained that the rest of the makeover was paid for by a contribution from the Presidential Inaugural Committee to the nonprofit White House Historical Association.
http://www.topix.net/content/wapo/2010/09/new-seats-of-power
Mario Buatta, New York interior designer and a designer of Blair House:
‘It’s trying to be contemporary in a federal building. With the stained floors and modern coffee table, it’s sort of an everything mix, but I guess that is what the president likes. The sofas are beautiful but they are casual and not the formal style for that room. If this is what our president is happy in, then that is what he should have. There is not much regard for the past in a country that is steeped in history and tradition.’
Looks like jefferson and Obama both in the laundering business.
Yeah, the striped wallpaper is horrible.
LOLOLOL!! Good one..........
That is funny....
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” A quote often used and attributed to Martin Luther King and now on the 0’s rug.
However:
“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine if by conscience. And from what I see, I am sure it bends toward justice.” Written by Theodore Parker, a Unitarian minister in 1853.
A now historic and “environmentally friendly” and typical example of 0’s fantastic history research skills.
LOL
No one should ever wallpaper over a door. Ever.
Then again, no one should have ever wallpapered the Oval Office in the first place.
It appears to have more of a 70’s Bob Newhart look to me.
They can redesign and rearrange the furniture, but they just can’t get the stench out.
It looks like the medium priced suite at a Holiday Express.
His desk is always empty so it will match his experience and scrubbed background. He doesn’t do work anyway, and never has.
The price listed is ridiculous. You can’t get diddly for $20K in NY. Let alone custom designed, handmade furniture and hand made wallpaper.
There is an historis handmade French wallpaer from the 19th century in City Hall.The reproduction, still available, would cost over $150,000 for a medium sized dining room.
The original in City Hall was restored at a cost of almost $200K paid for by private donations.
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