Last week we talked about Donald Trump, noted interior design aficionado, making noticeable changes to White House decor. The first edit happened in the Grand Foyer, where it’s traditional for the two most recent presidential portraits to be on display. So naturally Trump replaced Obama’s portrait with “artwork” depicting his own failed assassination attempt. In the Oval Office, a Swedish Ivy plant given to JFK by the Irish ambassador sat prominently on the fireplace mantel for 60 years. Trump deported that plant for parts unknown and set up a suite of gold statuettes instead. Deplorable. Turns out, Trump had professional help in making the White House gold again: the Wall Street Journal reports that he flew in his “gold guy” from Florida to (heavy-handedly) sprinkle the Midas Mar-a-Lago touch, for an overall style that I’m calling “Ego Rococo.”
A piece in The Wall Street Journal published on April 16 revealed that the politician, 78, enlisted cabinetmaker John Icart, who has worked on projects at Mar-a-Lago, to add gold finishes throughout the White House.
The newspaper reported that Trump has added multiple gold-colored touches throughout the government building, including golden borders to his and Vice President J.D. Vance’s portraits, gilded carvings for the fireplace mantel, a gold Trump crest in a doorway and gold coasters with his last name on it, among others.
Trump also reportedly brought gold cherubs from his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Icart is reportedly the person responsible for executing some of the president’s major design choices and was referred to as Trump’s “gold guy” by an adviser, per WSJ.
The Florida resident reportedly traveled to Washington, D.C., with Trump on Air Force One to assist with the decorations. While Icart declined to comment on the article, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the newspaper in an email, “It’s the Golden Office for the Golden Age.”
Trump had another flashy interior design idea in mind for the White House that never came to fruition, according to WSJ.
An administration official told the outlet that the president had the Oval Office examined to see if he could hang a chandelier in the room, but was told it was too heavy for the specific location.
In a March interview with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, Trump opened up about his gold design choices while giving her a tour of the White House.
When Ingraham pointed out the cherubs from his Mar-a-Lago estate, he said, “They’re gold, all gold. It’s angels. They say angels bring good luck and we need a lot of luck in this country with what they’ve done over the last four years.”
The camera then panned to show the flashy gold fixtures throughout the building.
“Throughout the years, people have tried to come up with a gold paint that would look like gold, but they have never been able to do it,” Trump explained of the symbolic color. “They’ve never been able to match gold with gold paint, that’s why it’s gold.”
I can’t help but feel like this is what they’re letting Donny boy play at while the people really in charge work on dismantling the government. Anyway, a few things: I’m positively shocked he deigned to extend the gold border to JD Vance’s portrait. I honestly would’ve expected no frame/border at all, or at the very least, silver. Maybe gold is just the only color he can think of these days. What am I saying, there’s always orange! What else… A chandelier in the Oval Office was ruled out for being too heavy for the building. Where exactly in the Oval was this planned for, right over the desk? I think you know where my mind is headed with this.
Out of a bouquet of things to pick apart, though, it’s this quote that’s doing me in: “Throughout the years, people have tried to come up with a gold paint that would look like gold, but they have never been able to do it. … They’ve never been able to match gold with gold paint, that’s why it’s gold.” What in the ever-loving f–king hell is this nonsensical, failed cognition test of an arrangement of words? It’s like a really, really, bigly bad Dr. Seuss passage. “They don’t have paint that looks like gold, that is the lie that I’ve been sold. They do not have paint that can match, not enough to make a splatch.” Also, is there some international intelligence conspiracy afoot to keep Trump from learning that there IS in fact gold paint? I’m not against such a thing, I just want to know.
Photos credit: Ufficio Stamapa/AGF Foto/Avalon, Geopix/Avalon, Chris Kleponis/POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com, POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com, Ufficio Stamapa/AGF Foto/Avalon
Here’s the part that made me gag: “gold Trump crest in a doorway.” So he’s branded the White House?
Also, does he mean gold leaf gilding? Because that’s a different process from painting.
AFAIK leaf gold doesn’t stick to plastic, or silicone, or whatever they’re using at the 🔶️ House these days.
And when the ghouls, dim reapers and the rest of Felon47’s maladministration will finally have left the building, a simple smudging ceremony won’t do. They’ll need stronger stuff to get rid of the bad juju.
Someone on Reddit found that the gold “carvings” they put on the fireplace and around the ceiling border are from Home Depot, spray painted in “gold”.
Probably so he can do it on the cheap then keep what’s left from the budget they give a POTUS to decorate when they come into office. Nothing is too small for them to grift.
Exorcism will probably be needed.
Wait, is this the same crest he plagiarized from another family last time he was in office?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40097665
It’s just too perfect that he replaced the word “Integritas” with “Trump”. At least he’s up front about his lack of integrity.
Yes that of the former husband, Amb Joseph Davies, of previous Mar a Lago owner Marjorie Merriwether Post. Rachel Maddow did a scathing, but funny, story on it months ago.
He doesn’t mean to ever leave. He’s put out “Trump 2028” hats.
That Ivy plant better still be alive somewhere! I have a monstera plant I inherited from my mother, that’s at least 53 years old. My sister also has part of it. That Ivy and my family Monstera is more precious than any amount of gold. Ask another plant person. They know.
WaPo tracked down the ivy awhile back – it’s in a greenhouse with all the other backups. https://wapo.st/4lJcc6p
I was so relieved to find out that the ivy was alive and not thrown in a WH trash can. I was hoping that there were still some decent people working at the WH from the previous administration.
Happy dance! Thank you, Myself.
I have a Christmas cactus that belonged to my great grandmother. If anyone ever harms it, they are dead to me.
This is further proof (although none was needed) that all of Trump’s taste is in his pie hole. My God! This is not so much his idea of beauty as his idea of what expensive looks like. Instead, it just looks like a bordello. I do wish they had installed the chandelier right over his desk, right over his head. You see where I’m going with this…
YES…I love where you are going with this!
Why didn’t DOGE fire this guy? It’s unnecessary government expenses.
Every POTUS is given a certain amount to redecorate. We just have one with execrable taste. Amongst other things.
Gilt on furniture and frames and his personal crest? Ugh. He’s so tacky and gauche and desperate.
Brrrr. Taking out the plants and covering everything with gold “statuettes” just makes the office look cold and frankly cheap. Suits him.
Looks like he’s planning on settling in for life. And God help us, I fully believe that’s true. One way or another, this guy ain’t leaving the White House
I’ve worried about this ever since he told a crowd in a campaign speech, vote for me and I’ll fix it so you’ll never have to vote again. He’s never leaving the oval office, willingly.
Unwillingly is ok though. Better than ok, actually.
Reading this makes me hope that I can find an old documentary with
Jacqueline Kennedy describing her painstaking efforts with the White House restoration project. It’s wild —and super tacky — that Trump’s decorators actually covered over a fricking door with a huge mirror with an extravagant frame. There are matching mirrors there that appear to be covering doors. Why?
It’s very reminiscent of Saddam Hussein’s palace.
Dictator and Fascist Chic?
🎯
You wouldn’t have to work hard to convince me he took the gold from Kentucky and put it in this room – how many people had to lose their livelihood and how many people will get EColi so this guy could have gold frames in his office?
I predict that the next “improvement “ he makes will be a special gilded chair that looks an awful lot like a throne. He is creating his own vision of the White House goes Vegas. Horrors!
Oh goodness. He’s definitely planning to be KING Donnie for a very very long time.
Agree. I’m baffled that he still has his supporters who go scorched earth when I try to reason with them. Some of that gold will end up in his crown.
Ugly, tacky, distasteful–accurate reflection of this abhorrent little Dictator.
And this is the guy America elected to represent us.
Looks around…
Sounds about right.
The overcrowded wall of portraits in the Oval reminds me of the photographs of the last Romanov’s in their palaces with the overcrowded iconography all over their walls.
Where the F does he get off putting his family crest on OUR house?
Evidently he’s declared himself king.
The Oval looks like a cluttery hoarder house. What a bunch of tacky gold shit. He has absolutely no taste whatsoever in anything.
Of course he has a “gold guy”.
Does his private bathroom have a gold toilet?
It’s called Rust-Oleum, moron, and it’s the spray paint your “decorator” (vandal, in my view) used to make those stick-on wall fixtures look gold.
I know we have much bigger concerns, but this trashing of the Oval Office really annoys me.
I’m surprised he left FDR there. As for the ‘decorating’, all I know is it’s the National Park Service that actually has to maintain that building (I know someone who worked there for eight years). Whatever ‘gold’ touches trump added, the NPS will have made it happen but they will have ensured that whatever it is can be undone. Still unclear on how/why the ripping up of the rose garden happened, though. That was on their watch, too.
Ick. Ick. Ick. Tacky. Tacky. Tacky. Cheap
Cheap. Cheap.
The more “gold” he puts up the more he shows how classless he is. This is why New York High Society never accepted him. He is very low-brow.
Last week Macron received a Trump’s envoy and the guy managed to compare the Elysée Palace to Mar-a-Lago. People were laughing about it a lot in the media afterward.
isn’t there some historic committee that’s supposed to keep an eye ton things, at least the public rooms? After all, it’s supposed to be the “people’s house.”
Perhaps not very politically correct but my late mother would have called the look ‘tart’s boudoir’. Truly heinous. I would expect no better.
😂
Are we paying for this sh*t?
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that he’s bragging about gilt like it’s solid gold.
I do love a good gold gilt – but this is pure sh*t. If he’s having it put on WH fixtures + furniture, it will be a hell of a job to remove.
Once had job gilting a large round table used in a performance piece by Marina Abramovic + Ulay. Fascinating material to work with. (very proud when saw a few slices of the table at Marina’s Guggenheim retrospective)
ETA Christ – it’s not even gold gilt!
LOL “Ego Rococo” is perfect!
*Queues up “Money can’t buy you class” by Countess Luann de Lesseps IYKYK