The New Oval Office: IKEA meets Grandma with 90s Beige
Obama’s new Oval Office decor is overwhelmingly…blah.
It’s like their Christmas decorations from 2009. It isn’t truly awful, but it isn’t great. His office is a step above Michelle’s 1980s Days Inn-inspired East Wing, which is just lacking a cheap reproduction print of a Georgia O’Keefe painting to complete the theme.
Looking at the remodeled office, it takes some blah aspect of decorating from each decade since the 1970s. It also has overtones from Jimmy Carter’s Oval Office. Similar color palette and furniture. I wasn’t crazy about Bush’s Oval Office and Clinton’s was garish, but wow. This is ugly. Did Obama decorate to match the style of his presidency? Hopeless and overpriced?
The Wallpaper
The wallpaper is bothering me. I know it was in some movie during the 90s. I’ve watched decorating shows my entire life, and that wallpaper is from the Clinton Administration era. I had a pink and white version of it in my room growing up. I keep expecting Shari and Matt from Room By Room on HGTV to burst into the Oval Office with helpful hints on how to hang wallpaper.
While searching for movie sets, I stumbled upon photos from the house in John Hughes’ Mr. Mom, one of my favorite 80s films. Compare the Oval Office to the set. It’s beige, beige, beige, beig…. (sorry, I fell asleep writing it).
The Couches
I know Obama is a fan of Man Men, so why didn’t he go with couches from a decade earlier? These are straight up 1970s ugliness. I spend a lot of time shopping in thrift stores for 1940s-1960s stuff. The White House Historical Society could have gone shopping with me one Saturday at Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore and bought these couches for $25 each. The fabric is equally awful. It’s a hybrid of toned-down harvest gold and baby poop. The faux-velor also looks like the couch is wearing some awful 1970s pimp clothes.
If you don’t believe me, I found this picture on an article about how to buy vintage furniture on Craigslist. The lines of the furniture are similar. The buttoned upholstery can be changed when recovering.
The Coffee Table
That coffee table should be punished for crimes against humanity. As noted in the Examiner, it looks like marble contact paper. Maybe Michelle had some left over furniture from a Days Inn remodel sale, so they re-purposed it? It also looks exactly like a table from IKEA, the Expedit. Why not add a Poang chair, too? Is Obama wanting to bond so much with his young staffers that he decided to decorate his Oval Office like their apartments? Grandma’s sofas supplemented by IKEA?
Please, just make it go away. It’s physically painful to look at.
The Rug
The rug is fine. It’s probably the most tasteful item in the room. However, Obama can’t resist putting socialism even into home decor. Look at one of the quotes:
“The Welfare of Each of Us is Dependent Fundamentally Upon the Welfare of All of Us” – President Theodore Roosevelt
Those of you who have read Liberal Fasicsm by Jonah Goldberg won’t be surprised at the socialist overtones of Theodore Roosevelt. He was a progressive Republican.
Many of you are probably thinking, “Adrienne can’t stand Obama. Why should she like his decorating?” And you’re probably right. In addition to his policies, I’ve criticized the style and taste of this family before (y’all escaped a post on the horrors of Michelle’s vacation clothes). Why did I expect more?
