Trump had done less redecorating of his bedroom during the first administration and his living quarters back then were often chaotic. His bedroom carpet was regularly covered in piles of bankers boxes, where he stashed documents. First-term aides would privately refer to them as his Beautiful Mind boxes, a sardonic reference to the biopic of the schizophrenic math prodigy John Nash. The boxes were sometimes stacked so high that they left impressions in the carpet when moved. A nighttime snacker, the President would frequently leave an array of empty potato chip bags, Starbucks wrappers, and ice cream cartons in the trash, or on the floor. The staff had to begin monitoring the trash after it was discovered he was sometimes throwing out White House sterling silver utensils.
The Bidens had made remarkably few changes to the Trump family's first-term decor. But for his second term, Trump wanted to spruce up his bedroom with gold and other flourishes. In the early weeks of the new administration, items were spirited from the second-floor corridor into the President's bedroom. Sometimes Trump carried the objects in himself, rearranging things across the private quarters on a whim. A massive mirror framed in gold leaf -- one Melanie had made the centerpiece of a first-term redesign of the Queens' Bedroom -- was relocated to the White House colonnade, where it became known as the "selfie" mirror.
The President's redecorating generated such a flurry of activity that staff often felt caught between the two Trumps, who were the only Presidential couple to regularly use and maintain separate bedrooms since Richard and Pat Nixon. (Bill and Hillary Clinton were said to have slept in separate bedrooms for a period of time after his affair with Monica Lewinsky became public.) Trump would let his wife use the master bedroom, known inside the White House as Room 219, and its dressing room; the President took Room 220, next to the Yellow Oval. Melania spent little time at the White House in the early weeks after the inauguration and was not around to consult as various objects vanished into the Oval Office or her husband's bedroom on his say-so. Once, when staff gently reminded the President that he was taking things from the Center Hall his wife had personally selected, he made clear he didn't care. He seemed almost to be competing with her -- determined to have the better room. The staff resorted to photographing potential substitutes and sending the images to Mrs. Trump for approval.
Trump, a television addict, had three sets installed in his personal quarters, just as he had in his first term: two for the bedroom and one for the bathroom. New carpet was laid in the bathroom on Inauguration Day, as before. Trump's preference for a fully carpeted bathroom had posed a challenge for the residence staff during his first term. The portion nearest the shower would often be soaked through; the staff was never quite sure why, but they worried about mold growing underneath. The solution was to lay a small piece of the same carpet -- never an actual bath mat -- over the larger one. Several of these pieces were kept in rotation, swapped out and dried.
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