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Don’t tell us that you’ve never gone to bed at night wondering what kind of office furniture is in the Oval Office. We know you have. We thought just for you and the sake of your sleep schedule, we’d share the lowdown of how the President of the United States “works out.”
Believe it or not, in the first 100 years there was in fact no designated space called “The Oval Office.” William Taft conceived the first Oval Office, followed by Roosevelt who detested the location and office design, believing it lacked privacy and didn’t have enough windows. Therefore, he built a new office in the corner of the West Wing, an area of the White House previously used for hanging wet laundry.
Today’s Oval Office design has stayed fairly similar to Roosevelt’s original. The room is 35×29, creating a large enough space for comfortable working with an office desk and a conference space filled with collaborative office furniture, sofas, and couches. The President’s office desk sits before three large windows with a fireplace on the opposite side of the room. To this day, the Gunlock chair remains the main office chair used by presidents. This chair was requested by Kennedy who suffered from back pain, and has remained in the office ever since.
Each president also adds their own personal touch to the room. For example, the walls during John F. Kennedy’s reign were decorated with seascapes and naval paintings, reminding him of his days in the Navy. Recent President George W. Bush hung pictures of his home state of Texas.
Currently, President Obama has numerous family photos sitting behind his office desk for him to glance at throughout the day. Having a deep interest in American history, he also has a program from the MLK March on Washington framed on a bookshelf.
Much like the Oval Office, we strive to create an office design reflecting the client’s true personality. Although OstermanCron doesn’t currently have any furniture in the White House, we still believe that we have furniture fit for a king!
