US Presidents’ Oval Office Decor Through the Years: Photos

Inspired by the White House’s oval-shaped Blue Room, the president’s formal workspace was designed by architect Nathan C. Wyeth.

Taft’s Oval Office featured an olive-green color scheme.

The Oval Office was moved to the southeast corner of the White House.

Roosevelt kept a variety of items on his desk, including photos of his sons, ceramic animal figurines, and an appointments easel with his daily schedule, according to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum.

Truman decorated the Oval Office with the turquoise rug and matching curtains. The walls were painted a lighter seafoam green.

The Resolute Desk, made of wood from the British ship H.M.S. Resolute, was gifted to President Rutherford B. Hayes by Queen Victoria in 1880. Previous presidents kept the desk in the second-floor office of the White House Residence and the Broadcast Room, according to the White House Historical Association.

He also redecorated the Oval Office with white drapes with red trim, evoking the American flag.

Nixon’s Oval Office rug, in the same blue color as the American flag, was designed by first lady Pat Nixon.

Ford’s decor included the wheel from the SS Mayaguez, an American container ship that was seized by Cambodian forces in 1975 and rescued at Ford’s direction.

The clock, built between 1795 and 1805, has remained in the Oval Office under every subsequent president since 1975.

Otherwise, he left most of Ford’s decor.

The rug featured the presidential seal in the center with sunbeams emerging from the middle, surrounded by a border of olive branches.

The Resolute Desk was moved to the Residence Office.

Hockersmith designed the yellow curtains and the blue rug with the presidential seal. Clinton also chose to bring the Resolute Desk back to the Oval Office.

The rug featured a sunbeam design with the presidential seal at its center, reminiscent of Reagan’s rug, and a lone star in a nod to Bush’s home state of Texas.

The quote on the border of the rug read, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

He also brought back Clinton’s gold curtains and chose a new off-white wallpaper.

Biden hung portraits of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton.

Many of the gold decor pieces in Trump’s Oval Office came from the White House collection, but Trump also imported some statuettes from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump also added flags representing different branches of the US military and additional presidential portraits, with President George Washington in the prominent center spot above the fireplace mantle.