NEWS FLASH!

Obamas purchase an Early American bed for the White House.

Leonards Antiques, a large antiques store based in Seekonk, Mass., recently sold President Obama and First Lady, Michelle Obama a beautiful antique bed. Leonards specializes in resizing antique beds to accommodate contemporary-sized mattresses (including king size). We just learned that White House decorator Michael S. Smith recently asked Leonards to send photos of a selection of beds for the Obamas to choose from. Last week, the store delivered their choice.... an antique 1820s tall-post tiger maple bed (almost identical to the one shown below), resized as a king to their new home at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Here's A Look at Life at the White House.....

Ronald Reagan once described the White House an eight-star hotel. Harry Truman, referred to it as "the crown jewel of the federal prison system". As Barack Obama and his family will quickly find out, the White House is a fortress that is as impossible to penetrate as it is difficult to escape from. Life there is both pampered and  claustrophobic, luxurious and regulated, but, above all, watched over at every instant.

Even the most innocent unscripted deviation from routine will have the Secret Service quivering with anxiety. For them, in an ideal world, America's First Family would not move out of the building throughout their entire time there. For Barack, Michelle, Malia and Sasha Obama, the most precious commodity during the next four or eight years will be normality.

They will find it, if anywhere at all, on the second and third floors of the executive residence, the classically styled white porticoed mansion the world knows as the White House. That, for the Obamas, will be home. The West Wing, made famous by the TV series and site of the Oval Office, is a smaller, two-storey building linked to the mansion by a colonnaded walk. On the other side is the East Wing, housing the Office of the First Lady.

Every president divides his working day differently. George Bush was an early-to-rise, early-to-bed creature of habit, who woke 5:30am, was up at 6:00am and in the Oval Office for his daily intelligence briefing at 7:00am.. He usually ate lunch in his private dining room or even at his desk. By 5.30pm he'd be home, for a quiet dinner. Then perhaps some TV or a movie, before bed by 10pm at the latest.

Bill Clinton was just the opposite, a later riser who got going as the day progressed. Bush always wore a suit and tie to work. Clinton's White House, in the early days at least, was a casual place of jeans and brainstorming sessions, fueled by pizza and phone calls deep into the night. Ronald Reagan's day started at nine and ended at five.

But for all of them, refuge was on the second and third floors of the mansion. There's a drawing room (the Yellow Oval Room), two/three sitting rooms, dining room and six bedrooms, plus the Truman balcony with its stunning views.  And that's just the second floor. The third floor has a solarium, games room, linen room and another small sitting room (which the outgoing Bush used for workouts).

That bare description, however, only hints at the amenities on hand. One hundred staff, including five full-time chefs, are at the disposal of this particular chief executive and his family. On top of this, Obama will have his mother-in-law, the 71-year-old Marian Robinson, living with them and helping to look after the girls and the as yet  to be acquired First Puppy. The Obamas will have a private theater (all deep red with soft chairs you could drown in) at which the movie of their choice will be shown, if necessary before general release, and where he can practise for a presidential debate, or rehearse a State of the Union address. And if you're president, not only can you invite movie stars in person but hey come running.

Firs Lady, Michelle Obama, furthermore, has a $150,000 (£102,000) budget to redecorate the private quarters as she pleases, to make it feel more like home.

And even before the makeover, the Obamas will lack for nothing. In her 1989 memoir, My Turn, Nancy Reagan gave a flavor of living there. "Every evening, while I took a bath, one of the maids would come by and remove my clothes for laundering or dry cleaning. Five minutes after Ronnie came home and hung up his suit, it would disappear to be pressed, cleaned or brushed."

These days, 21st-century communications have made a president's existence busier and more stressful. Earlier presidents have had a putting green, swimming pool, bowling lane or horseshoe pit put in to relax them. Obama famously has mused about getting a basketball court. More probably, though, as the first genuinely urban president in years, he'll try to get out on the town, and visit Washington neighborhoods – that is, of course, if his Secret Service detail lets him.

                                     White House Lincoln Room


   





                                          White House Green Room