Behind the Scenes of Christmas at the WH

Here are some great behind-the-scenes images of Christmas 2007 at the WH.

Open post: Holiday wishes

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all!

Added a pic of the East Colonnade and the Rose Garden sent by Christopher Tolton and featuring a particularly treasured moment.

Third floor

As promised, I added three photos to the Solarium, or Sun Room, and—since I now have more than one photo of it—created a page for the Linenarium, or Linen Room.

Also, the marvelous vice-presidential ceremonial office in the EEOB suffered a fire the other day. Please try to restrain your impulse to joke about Dick Cheney's smoldering good looks.

Solarium and more

Christina has sent along even more terrific photos dug out of Getty Images. I'll post some of the Solarium and others in the next couple of days.

Meanwhile, the WH has pics of the first lady entertaining in her office.

President's Dining Room

Added three new photos to the President's Dining Room page, showing the Carter decor in color and showing the Bush 1 redecoration in 1989.

Getty image trove

Christina has passed along a passel of photos from the Getty archive that I neglected in my searches (I was focused on the new Situation Room at the time). It's a dizzying collection of candid moments thruout the Residence mainly from the Johnson and Ford years. I'll be posting them over the weekend.

In the past, I've scraped the brutally ugly watermark off the handful of Getty images I've used, leaving a blurry smudge that isn't necessarily better (the process involves using parts of the tiny thumbnail version). But I'll post most of these as they are, with links to Getty for proper credit. Hopefully, publishers who can actually afford to pay for images for commercial projects will find them here and jump to the Getty site to buy them and thereby make up for my (credited, noncommercial, educational, public service, fair use) appropriation.

UPDATE: Added several photos from Johnson to Bush 1. I'm not 100% confident about the Ford Beauty Salon photo and I'm baffled by one that I initially thought was the Living Room (formerly president's bedroom). It doesn't seem to match the one I already have from that era and the space under the window is missing the characteristic pattered vent.

To Christina, I award the Jackie Kennedy There's-Got-Be-Some-Decent-Antiques-Here-Somewhere Award. Thanks, Christina!

UPDATE: The votes are in on the Ford sitting room photo; it is surely the Presidential Suite of the Bethesda Naval Hospital after Mrs. Ford's surgery.

Palm Room

At last! A sweet snap of party preparations in the Palm Room from Time.....

Menorah lighting

The president hosted a ceremony to light a menorah the other day, this year in the Entrance Hall. They clearly do these lighting ceremonies in locations with tile floors to minimize the risk of the president a clumsy person burning down the mansion, but you would think the East Room would be a better place. Just put down a fire-resistant rug or something. In preparation for hosting the menorah lighting, they had the Kitchen kosherized again.

Girl power

Visitor Christina pointed out that the Ford Library has posted some additional photos of the Fords, including a great one of the first lady in her dressing room with an ERA banner.

Open post: Lincoln on ice

ABC chose the statue of Lincoln outside the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, IL to illustrate the nasty weather in the Midwest. I wonder sometimes if George Washington had weather in mind when he chose the site for DC: a nice mix of four seasons without too much snow in the winter. The heat might have been more than he counted on tho, altho it can't be much different at Mount Vernon.

UPDATE: my own photo of an icy branch.

Open post: season's greetings

The president and first lady lit the tree on the Ellipse the other day, and—despite the cold—the president welcomed Santa Claus without mispronouncing his name.

Also, no Hanukkha photo op this year. We got a picture in the Visitors Foyer before, but maybe that will come later with a menorah lighting.

Ground Floor Question

Hi all! Peter here.

To further assist with the building of the 3D models I have a question for you. In the floor plan for the ground floor of the residence, the Vermeil Room and Map Room show some built-in shelves with doors. However my general sense is that some of the shelves are now gone.

Specifically, the south wall of the Map Room. Are those shelves still present? And the Vermeil Room, newer photos don't show shelves along the west wall. While we have compiled many great photos here, perhaps someone knows about the detail not shown.

Thank you. :)

New front page - ornaments

Changed the front page to one of row upon row of castings of the official 2005 ornaments from Design Formations.

Ye olde Front page gallery.

CBS at the White House

CBS has a video interview with Laura Bush about the holiday decor. Hannah Storm: "Now I'm off to a Harper's Bazaar photo shoot -- with cardboard cutouts of the candidates!" How will she tell?

CNN has the best WH holiday pictures I've seen so far.