The First Lady and the Committee for the Preservation of the White House carefully chose American designers and materials to give the State Dining Room its new look. The update includes: repainted and reglazed walls, new draperies, a new rug, and new historically-inspired chairs.
The White House State Dining Room, a grand and historic space, has received a makeover from First Lady Michelle Obama and the White House Historical Association, as the association continues its fifty-four year mission of supporting and funding the preservation and restoration of the White House with the recently unveiled refurbishment. “We are committed to supporting the vision of our founder Mrs. Kennedy, for the White House to showcase the best of American history, design, craftsmanship, and creativity”, said Association President Stewart D. McLaurin.
The State Dining Room hosts America’s military, kings & queens, foreign dignitaries as well as Nobel Prize-winners, Hollywood stars, and friends and family of the first family through official White House ceremonies, dinners, public tours and more. This causes a lot of wear and tear over the years and the room was in need of an update, the most notable of which are new curtains and rugs. Bold striped draperies of blue and ecru fall gracefully from thick gilded poles. They blend perfectly with a new blue-green rug, intricately woven with wreath motifs and oak leaves clearly inspired by the historic ceiling plasterwork (it is customary to have two identical 28-foot-by-43-foot wool rugs made, as one is always in rotation). Scott Group Custom Carpets in Grand Rapids, Michigan created the rugs. The walls and detailed molding of the room and ceiling also were refreshed, as it was artfully repainted and glazed in several shades of white that all highlighted the architecture. All of the colors seem to again remind us of the Obama’s love for Hawaii as the colors echo the newly created White House State China (http://www.jenniferpickens.com/blog/new-presidential-china-pattern/).
The final items for the room are the 34 new mahogany chairs. Upholstered in period-appropriate horsehair fabric in a brown grid pattern, and trimmed with brass nail heads, they were all custom made by Baker Furniture of Hickory N.C. They were modeled after chairs purchased by James Monroe for the East Room in 1818. The administration is hoping that these chairs will be more user-friendly as they found the previous chairs to too difficult to use for entertaining due to their size.
Michael S. Smith, the Obama’s Los Angeles-based interior designer and a member of the Committee for the Preservation of the White House who worked on the project as well as on other rooms of the White House, said “She [The First Lady] is always very interested in two things: the practicality and functionality of something and, ‘Does it work for the White House?’ And second, ‘How will this work for the next family? Is this an addition that will make the house more usable and versatile for the short term and beyond?’.” Smith added, “The First Lady is very aware of her position as the custodian of America’s house and its legacy. She inherited the house in very good shape from Mrs. Bush. She perceives her job as being to add to it and to move the house forward to the next family.”
The last time the State Dining Room was refurbished was in 1998, during the William J. Clinton Administration.
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