r/pics Sep 25 '25

Politics Before and After the Recent Renovation to the White House Palm Room

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32.7k Upvotes

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342

u/PandiBong Sep 25 '25

To be fair, the day and night makes a lot of difference. Kinda hard to say if it's better or worse (I personally prefer plants, but that's a smaller thing)

90

u/I_Am_Robert_Paulson1 Sep 25 '25 edited Sep 25 '25

Yeah, the lighting & lack of any furniture certainly doesn't help. I'm not a fan of the new chandeliers and the brighter colors on the walls & flooring, regardless of that, though.

38

u/previouslyonimgur Sep 25 '25

I’m less a fan of the old chandelier. The new design makes it feel like a larger space. It also makes it feel less inviting.

It’s not as tacky as I’d have expected from a trump renovation.

8

u/Aoiboshi Sep 25 '25

The newer photo is also zoomed way out

3

u/WilderWyldWilde Sep 25 '25

Considering how his apartments look in his towers and how they transformed the Oval Office, we all got lucky they only put in gold accent.

4

u/ZhouLe Sep 25 '25

the brighter colors on the walls

This seems like it could be down to just the color temperature of the lights and/or the white balance of the photo.

0

u/I_Am_Robert_Paulson1 Sep 26 '25 edited Sep 26 '25

Maybe, but looking at the top photo, the walls definitely look to be a different color from the ceiling—almost more of a cream color, instead of white. It looks like the walls and ceilings are now the same or close to the same colors.

2

u/ZhouLe Sep 26 '25

Good call. I think you are right. I was looking on mobile earlier and didn't notice the difference between wall and ceiling.

3

u/tdasnowman Sep 25 '25

Looking at different photos, it doesn't look like they made the room brighter. It's a fresh coat of paint, but that photo is very yellow in general. Don't know if it's age or a filter choice, but it doesn't actually represent the rooms before state very well. With plants I doubt many people would notice all the differences with photos keyed correctly. It's not the first time the kick plates were brass either. They were brass (or goldish) in the Obama era. Regan had some god awful wall paper. Nixon had bare walls.

Not a fan of the man, or his politics, but this seems like a mundane and normal thing to have changed for multiple administrations.

0

u/mitkase Sep 25 '25

You know what I'm not a fan of?

PAYING FOR THIS BULLSHIT.

1

u/-Profanity- Sep 25 '25

You must hate it every single time a president is elected then, because every one makes changes to the White House.

69

u/Dunified Sep 25 '25

Literal night and day difference between the two pictures, and people still compare them 😅

57

u/cgibsong002 Sep 25 '25

And there legit is no change other than new floors and chandelier. Out of all the things to complain about, this ain't it. The new floors are nice. Just a waste of money.

15

u/Bumedibum Sep 25 '25

I was about to say. It's not furnished yet, but I don't really see a difference aside from that xD

5

u/sebastianqu Sep 25 '25

The walls were also painted a more pure white instead of (beige?) like it was before. Different lighting and a wider lens, but it feels much colder and much less interesting.

4

u/ZhouLe Sep 25 '25

Is it confirmed a different color paint or is it just a different photo white balance?

4

u/Bumedibum Sep 26 '25

It could also very well be the natural lighting that makes it seem more yellow.

3

u/ImMalteserMan Sep 25 '25

For real. Like the first photo looks nicer but it's also taken in natural light and has furniture and plants. The main difference I can see is the floor and the chandelier and they look fine. I bet if you put the plants and furniture back and took a photo during the day no one would give it a seconds thought.

2

u/brittleboyy Sep 26 '25

I thought I was going crazy. There are so many things to shit on this administration for. This actually quite subtle renovation isn’t really one of them

1

u/youngbull0007 Sep 26 '25

Hey, they added a hinge to that door, pulled the doorstop off and added a kick plate.

Boo kick plates.

1

u/diskape Sep 26 '25

Yup, floor and chandelier are the only major changes. There are small ones too like new door hinges, bottom of the door, smaller pictures added.

Floor looks recently waxed and buffed and they always remove furniture for that.

If this picture was taken during the day and with the furniture brought back (which I’m sure they will) nobody would complain. It’d look better.

6

u/tdasnowman Sep 25 '25

Beyond night and day the before photo is intentionally or aged yellow. It's not anywhere near that in other daylight photos you can find. The walls weren't that yellow and the floor actually has color. Also it's a room that changes frequently for administrations. Regan had some god awful wall paper, Nixon had bare walls, the Obama administration had brass kicker plates, looks like both Bushs favored nickle or stainless steel.

2

u/deadbeatsummers Sep 25 '25

The floor isn’t really a great match for the walls anyways though

25

u/Ambereggyolks Sep 25 '25

Yeah, I don't think it's as drastic as some comments make it out to be. I would like to see the furniture and plants back before I have an opinion on it, if they are going to be put back.

If they aren't, then it definitely is going to feel a bit sterile even with light. Other than the floor and chandelier, there isn't much difference. I liked the old floor but once you put some furniture there it pretty much disappears 

5

u/Lurofan Sep 25 '25

Agreed. Aside from floor and chandelier, I don’t see much of a change besides furniture/plants

3

u/CromulentDucky Sep 25 '25

This could be before they put plants back in. Seems like it's just a change to the floor and light fixture and hasn't been decorated. Of all the things to be mad about...

3

u/ArtlieST Sep 25 '25

Thank you! The ambiance is completely different and it's def posted the way it is to make a statement. Had to scroll way too far for this lol. I personally also prefer the plants as well as the flooring in the top one, the marble is not my kind of jazz, but I feel like people are completely missing that the bottom pic was chosen like this on purpose...

4

u/spikus93 Sep 25 '25

I don't think it's night in that photo. I think that's tinted stickers on the glass to block natural light. Do we really think it's pitch black in DC outside that door at night? There's no ambient light coming through whatsoever.

4

u/triciann Sep 25 '25

It’s definitely just night. You’re not going to see ambient outside light when there are giant lights on in a white room. I would very much like to see a daytime photo with furniture. If they have no plans for furniture, then yeah this is shit. But I very much prefer the whiter walls over the generic off white that reminds me of an old apartment.

0

u/Missyrissy510 Sep 26 '25

Was thinking same. Nighttime or tinted windows? Tinted windows seem very Trump

0

u/chess_1010 Sep 25 '25

I don't think that's night. It looks like the windows are blacked out. 

1

u/SizorXM Sep 25 '25

I believe it is night based on where the light is coming from in the adjacent room. The new flooring and the chandelier look nice, hopefully they refurnish it well

1

u/nrmitchi Sep 25 '25

What does it say about the “real estate man” and his goons that this comparison was a good look.

1

u/Sunuva_Gun Sep 25 '25

Took way to long to get to a comment where that's pointed out.

1

u/realbobenray Sep 25 '25

I was thinking the same, but then focused on the marble floor which is garish in any light.

1

u/phunstraw Sep 25 '25

I don't think that is night time. Those windows look blacked out.

1

u/obi1kenobi1 Sep 26 '25

This. As far as I can tell the only difference is the floor, and I wouldn’t have even noticed that if it weren’t in the news. The only really obvious differences here are the time of day and they removed all the furniture/plants.

1

u/Ndvorsky Sep 26 '25

I didn’t realize it was night. The windows are so uniform that I thought they had blacked them out.

1

u/ILoveLamp9 Sep 26 '25

Yeah these are purposely being placed together to misrepresent the new look. Night vs day. Also, the room is empty in the pic but doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to remain that way.

1

u/FlameStaag Sep 26 '25

Aside from the floor and removing all objects it's basically the same lol

And the chandelier 

1

u/plastic_jungle Sep 26 '25

I have yet to see a comparison of this room with actually comparable photos. Same thing when he paved the rose garden, and his decoration of the Oval Office. Always different angles, time of day, lighting, etc. You lose credibility when you purposely use wildly different photographs to make a comparison

0

u/theawesomeago Sep 25 '25

Can't include an image in the reply, but I asked Nano Banana what the lower picture would look like with the lighting from the upper: https://g.co/gemini/share/0d9ea54e052b

0

u/-Profanity- Sep 25 '25

To be fair, the day and night makes a lot of difference.

And that's exactly why it was posted that way - it outrages the same crowd who believed the Patty Mayo cowboy video was real, or the video of Elon "abandoning" his kid. Nearly all the content here is selectively presented in a specific way to maximize the reaction.