With the Obamas' redecoration of the Oval Office getting its public unveiling this week, the New York Times asked a number of commentators for reactions. Here is a picture of the new design, followed by what I told the Times:
It's very cautious, neutral, inoffensive, neither one thing nor the other -- the Audacity of Taupe. It looks a little like the décor you'd expect to see in a hotel, the Taupe Executive Room at the Embassy Suites. But I applaud the switch from flowers to a bowl of fruit on the new coffee table. In times of great economic hardship, it makes a world of sense to be able to eat the centerpiece if necessary.
I also like the fact that the new Oval Office rug was made in unemployment-ravaged Michigan, creating a micro green shoot of sorts (actually a micro wheat-and-cream shoot, to be more precise). But the decision to festoon the new carpet with quotes from Lincoln, F.D.R., J.F.K., Teddy Roosevelt and Martin Luther King seems a tad Hallmark-y, and a little prepubescent -- something Sasha's fellow fourth graders might suggest (Malia's seventh-grade friends would probably find it "lame"). What's next, adding the doodle of a heart with "Barack + Michelle"? And isn't falling back on F.D.R.'s "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" and Lincoln's "Government of the people, by the people, for the people" a bit lacking in imagination? Perhaps the Oval Office bookshelf could use a copy of Bartlett's Book of Less Familiar Quotations.
You can read Penelope Green's story, and what the others said about the redesign, here.
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These colours neither attract nor repulse. What matters is the outcome of the meetings in that room. The President may not even have cared what colours went in there. He was away on vacation when the job was done. Something like that had also occured during the Clinton era, in their living quarters.
It is not ruled out that the President may even have been upset by these changes in colours. He had never been so dull in his public addresses as the broadcast he made from the newly decorated Oval Office. How is one sure that this decor had the Presidenti
Distinctiv
Drawing on the beautiful decorative furnishing
Instead of completely decorating a room to achieve the desired look, the accent approach involves carefully selecting decorative accessorie
You can easily locate outstandin
Surroundin
I would suggest the interior designer Michael Smith who "orchestra
I have seen better color co-ordinat
Perhaps the idea is to make it as neutral as possible, and not reveal any individual character of Obama and his wife - or perhaps they do not have any design flair or taste and realise this?
Many comedians and mimics admit to not having fully sussed out Obama yet.
if you click on the first line you can see bush's decor compared to obama's. bush's looks more "president
that said, hate the coffee table and the room cries out for burgundy accents instead of blue. my house is awash with taupe....s
I heard it described as looking like "someone detonated a beige bomb in there".
Your carpet should always be much darker than your furniture and walls or else your room looks like it is floating whereas having a darker carpet brings the furniture down to the floor (in appearance ofcourse) . People with bad taste always avoid color because they think they cant be criticised if everything is neutral.
He wanted something that he could feel free in.
Blue and Red would have been too solid and obvious.
Black and White would have done the same.
Grey would have been senseless.
Let these colours be left to those who discussed and agreed without any further debates.