Trump renovations: golden garlands and a lawn-less garden

President Donald Trump has dedicated most of his professional career to real estate development, so it's only fitting that, in the first year of his second term, he has embarked on the largest renovation of the White House in decades and has taken it personally. "It's my real estate blood flowing," Trump said in May to explain his work. Photographs of the Oval Office, the place where the president holds professional appointments and addresses the media, are evidence of that personal touch, so obviously Trumpian: gilded sconces, walls covered in paintings, patriotic colors ...

The United States Presidency allocates an additional $100,000 to each new president for refurbishing their residence upon taking office. This amount is often spent on replacing carpets, curtains, and mattresses and is never used up. Trump, on the other hand, has stated that he will foot the bill for the renovations because they will be much more ambitious.

For now, the look of the Oval Office in the West Wing has already begun to change. Where Joe Biden had five portraits (Washington, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton), two busts (Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King) and a floral arrangement around the fireplace, Trump has placed seven older paintings in splendid gilded frames, a dozen vases, garlands and trophies also gilded, blue curtains and

A model airplane sits on the low table (the busts remain). The seats have also been gilded, in keeping with the president's personal taste, demonstrated in his real estate projects and private homes. And, in the anteroom, Trump has hung a painting of himself alongside Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. According to The New York Times, a chandelier will be added next.

Trump's renovations go beyond the furnishings. The president has already embarked on more serious work on the White House Rose Garden, a lawn measuring approximately 20 by 40 meters, surrounded by roses and used for official receptions during the warmer months. Trump has had the lawn ripped up and hard surfaced. Why? Because guests wearing high heels were uncomfortable, White House sources have explained. The project is almost a taboo, as the rose garden has maintained its appearance since 1902, during Theodore Roosevelt's term.

The president's obsession, even before his first victory in 2016, is on the other side of the complex, in the East Wing (the representative area), which he wants to expand to create a ballroom, like the one he built at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida clubhouse.