there's been a lot of talk about the White House and I happen to be a big fuckin nerd so let's do a little info dump about it:
the thing was built in 1800 and most of the presidents since Adams (2nd) have lived there.
in 1814 the British set it on fire - in fairness they were setting the whole city on fire at the time, so it wasn't exactly out of the way for them. famously Dolly Madison (wife of #4), who was about to have a fancy dinner party at the time, and risked her own safety (and the safety of a bunch of staff, including slaves) to save a bunch of items of historical significance, and allegedly the British decided to sit down and enjoy the lovely abandoned dinner party, allowing dolly, the staff and the stuff to get away.
they place was super fucked, inside and out, so they had to rebuild; the next president to move in was Monroe (5th) but they didn't actually finish the rebuild until Jackson (7th) was president, this is also when they get running water for the first time.
after that they leave the old girl alone for a while but Arthur (21st) got REAL extra - it's all Victorian details and gold leaf, Tiffany (of the jewelry and lamp fame) was involved, it was a whole thing - and allegedly Arthur micromanaged the shit out of the project and was generally a pain in the ass the whole time.
there were a couple proposals to do additions and stuff but none really came together until Teddy Roosevelt (26th) came around. Which is just so Teddy, tbh. anyway he had some stables torn down, built the west wing and moved all the offices and shit there so that the actual ass white house could (mostly) be an actual ass house. this is also when the EAST wing was built but more on that later.
i believe that this was supposed to be temporary but Taft (27th) doubled down and expanded it even more. (fun fact: he also make the office oval.)
After Taft, it's quiet again for a until Bitch Ass Herb (31st) had a basement dug out under the place but only a couple months later there was ANOTHER fire (on Christmas) so he had to do the whole thing again and this time he added AC.
Now, by the time Hoover was out he was one of the most hated men in America including by FDR (32nd) who had the whole place redone including adding a pool, expanding the east wing and adding more offices underground, which is cool but I don't know how the people that worked there felt about them. he also had the oval office moved (but kept oval) so now it's between the residence and the west wing, and he made the building wheelchair accessible for obvious reasons.
Okay so FDR dies in office and Truman (33rd) takes over, it's the tail end of WWII and Truman knows that atom bombs are a thing now so he wants to add a bomb shelter. makes sense. but when the engineers get in there they realize that the place is gonna fall down like any second. literally the quote is that it was 'only standing out of habit.' so under Truman the interior is GUTTED and rebuilt but in the end he did get his bomb shelter and the house was no longer going to fall down.
the whole Truman Restoration is actually really fascinating but I'm still 80 years away from my point so we're moving on to the Jacqueline Kennedy Restoration, note the name; John (35th) was doing president stuff, this was all Jackie - she designed the White House as we think of it today. When you picture the inside of the White House what you're picturing is Jackie's work. This whole thing is also a fascinating side quest that I'm not going to get into right now but, Google it cuz it's cool.
During the Kennedy administration Congress declared that the White House™ is a museum and of significant historical importance and that all major changes are supposed to be approved by some White House preservation committee.
Nixon added the press briefing Room (built over the pool added by FDR) and a bowling lane, Carter added the first computers and put solar panels on the roof, Regan took down the solar panels, because of course he did, Clinton added solar water heaters, W Bush had the Internet infrastructure improved and Obama had a tennis court turned into a basketball court but no major architectural things have changed about the house... until this Big Orange Dingus came along.
so now we're going to take a detour to talk about the east wing: Betty Ford said that the West Wing is the mind of the nation but the East Wing is the heart. The east wing is where tours go in, it's where the offices for the staff of the residence are located, the visitor center is there and, since Rosalyn Carter, the office and staff of the first lady. There's also a movie theater and Truman's bomb shelter is under there.
well. all that stuff was there.
Remember how I said that there's a committee that is supposed to approve major architectural changes to the white house? yeah, Trump didn't clear it with them. But that's okay, right? Because he said, “It won’t interfere with the current building. It’ll be near it, but not touching it, and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of.”
now Trump and I define a lot of things differently, for example he says "ICE" and I say "Secret Police;" he says "grab em by the pussy, I say "that's obviously sexual assault;" he says, "near but not touching," I say "entirely demolished." you get the idea.
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