Before-and-after photos show the decor changes Trump has made to the White House, so far

The West Wing Colonnade was unadorned during the Biden years.

President Joe Biden walked through the West Colonnade alongside Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in May 2023.

Trump added a "Presidential Walk of Fame," where Biden is depicted with a photo of an autopen producing his signature.

Trump has criticized Biden's use of an autopen and sought to invalidate Biden's pardons and commutations that were signed with the device.

The plaques accompanying the photos, which appeared in December 2025, summarize each presidency with occasionally critical commentary on Trump's predecessors. Biden is referred to as "sleepy," and President Barack Obama is described as "divisive."

In a December statement, press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the plaques "eloquently written descriptions of each President and the legacy they left behind" and said that Trump wrote many of them himself.

The Palm Room, which connects the White House Residence to the West Colonnade, was previously furnished with plants, green benches, and a tile floor.

The Palm Room leads out into the Rose Garden.

In September, Trump refinished the room with a new chandelier and a white marble floor.

"New lobby leading to Oval Office — Magnificent marble floor, compliments of President Donald J. Trump!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump also added photos of himself taken by White House photographer Daniel Torok.

During Biden's time in the White House, the Oval Office door was not decorated.

Aside from a presidential seal above the door to the West Wing, the walls were empty.

President Donald Trump added new gold signage outside the Oval Office.

The gold lettering spelling out "The Oval Office" was set in the Shelley Script font. Trump also added a gold decal to the top of the door.

In the Oval Office, Biden's dark-blue rug was originally designed for Bill Clinton.

The rug, which featured the presidential seal in the center, was designed by Kaki Hockersmith, an interior designer based in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Upon returning to the White House, Trump replaced it with a lighter rug used by Ronald Reagan.

The rug's design includes the presidential seal, a sunbeam pattern, and olive branches along the border as a symbol of peace.

Trump also used the rug during his first term.

Biden only had two flags in the Oval Office.

Biden displayed an American flag and a flag with the presidential seal.

Trump added the flags of different branches of the US military.

Trump's Oval Office features the flags of all six branches of the US military, including the Army, the Marine Corps, the Navy, the Air Force, the Space Force, and the Coast Guard.

During Biden's presidency, the Oval Office ceiling featured no additional embellishments.

The crown molding on the ceiling matched the cream wallpaper.

Trump added gold trim to the crown molding.

The gold embellishments matched the gold curtains, which remained in place from Biden's presidency.

Trump's love of gold decor is well-known. His Trump Tower penthouse in New York City features numerous gilded ceilings, furniture pieces, and artwork. Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, also includes a ballroom covered in gold from floor to ceiling.

Before Trump took office for the second time, the presidential seal on the Oval Office ceiling was a subtle adornment.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the plaster relief of the presidential seal to the Oval Office during a 1934 White House renovation.

Trump added gilded gold detailing to the design, making it more visible.

Both the seal and the stars surrounding it were covered in gold paint.

Biden's Oval Office featured a prominent portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Biden also hung portraits of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton together to symbolize the benefits of different opinions, as well as portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

Trump added additional portraits and numerous gold embellishments to the space.

Trump added more portraits with decorative frames to create an Oval Office gallery wall. He also replaced Biden's portrait of FDR with one of George Washington and displayed historic gold urns and baskets from the White House collection on the mantle.

Biden chose to display President Barack Obama's official White House portrait in the Entrance Hall.

The hyperrealistic portrait, painted by Robert McCurdy, was unveiled at the White House in 2022.

Trump replaced Obama's portrait with a painting of himself.

Artist Marc Lipp painted a rendering of an Associated Press photo that captured Trump raising his fist in the air following an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The White House Rose Garden previously featured a grass lawn.

Before it was used for press conferences and events, first lady Ellen Wilson originally designed the outdoor space as a formal flower garden in 1913.

First lady Melania Trump added a limestone border around the lawn in 2020.

Trump decided to pave over the grass, turning it into an outdoor terrace rebranded as "The Rose Garden Club."

Trump told Fox News that the grass in the Rose Garden was impractical for large events because it stayed wet when it rained and was too soft for attendees who wore high heels.

"The grass just doesn't work," Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham in March 2025.

Workers began transforming the lawn into a patio that summer, replacing the grass with concrete and stone tiles. "The Rose Garden Club" renovation was completed in August 2025.

Biden didn't display any statues in the Rose Garden.

Some Rose Garden events during the Biden administration featured tables with vases of flowers, but no additional decor.

Trump has added 5 statues.

In October 2025, Trump added a statue of George Washington to the Rose Garden that had previously been displayed at the Washington Monument.

Two more Founding Father statues depicting Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton appeared in March 2026, followed by "Freedom's Charge," a 14-foot statue of Revolutionary War soldiers, a month later.

Trump's latest addition in July was a bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson.

Biden and previous presidents occasionally held large events, such as state dinners, in decorative tents on the White House lawn.

The East Room, the largest state room in the White House, had a seating capacity of 200 people. When Biden hosted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in 2023, he held the state dinner in a tent outside the White House to accommodate the larger crowd of over 300.

In July 2025, Trump announced plans to build a state ballroom and demolish the East Wing to construct it.

The 90,000-square-foot ballroom, which the White House called a "much-needed and exquisite addition," was initially planned to seat 650 people, but that has since been increased to more than 1,000.

The White House initially estimated the cost of the ballroom at $200 million, later raising the estimate to $400 million. But an internal project summary prepared by Clark Construction in March and obtained by The Washington Post put the cost of the broader East Wing project at $600 million, with more than half coming from taxpayers.

The White House has said Trump and other private donors would pay for the ballroom itself, and that taxpayer funds were being used for security infrastructure associated with the project.

In April, a federal judge halted above-ground construction of the ballroom, ruling that congressional approval was required, as part of a lawsuit filed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Work related to the "safety and security of the White House" — specifically, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center beneath what was once the East Wing — was permitted to continue.

After a federal appeals court upheld the ruling in August, Trump said in a Truth Social post on August 7 that he would appeal the "unjust decision" to the Supreme Court. On Friday, the administration asked the Supreme Court to allow the project to continue. The Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the case.

During the Biden administration, the Cabinet Room featured minimal artwork and decor.

Located in the West Wing near the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room overlooks the Rose Garden and features a large, oval-shaped mahogany table purchased by President Richard Nixon in 1970, according to Obama's archived White House website.

Seating at the table is assigned in the order of each department's establishment, with the oldest departments seated nearest the president.

Trump added additional paintings to the walls and gold furnishings along the ceiling.

Trump chose portraits of past presidents, including George Washington, John Adams, Andrew Jackson, James Polk, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower, to decorate the Cabinet Room.

"The vaults are where we have a lot of great pictures and artwork," Trump told reporters in July 2025. "And I picked it all myself, I'm very proud of it."

The Cabinet Room featured eagle-shaped wall sconces during Biden's presidency.

The eagle sconces were installed as part of a 2004 refurbishment of the Cabinet Room, which also included a new rug, curtains, and a new paint color.

Trump added 24-karat gold decals to the walls and installed matching gold curtains.

"Some of the highest quality 24 Karat Gold used in the Oval Office and Cabinet Room of the White House," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post in September. "Foreign Leaders, and everyone else, 'freak out' when they see the quality and beauty."

Before Trump took office for a second time, the Lincoln Bathroom featured seafoam-green tile walls and basic furnishings.

The Lincoln Bathroom connects to the Lincoln Bedroom on the second floor of the Executive Residence.

Trump renovated the bathroom with Statuary marble and added gold furnishings.

Trump wrote on Truth Social in October that the bathroom was last renovated "in the 1940s in an Art Deco green tile style, which was totally inappropriate for the Lincoln Era."

The South Lawn, where Marine One lands, was just grass during Biden's presidency.

Presidential helicopters have used the White House lawn as a takeoff and landing point since the Eisenhower administration. Instead of a permanent helipad, Biden and other past presidents used landing disks placed onto the grass.

Trump began constructing a new granite helipad on the South Lawn.

The new Marine One helicopters, Sikorsky VH-92A Patriots, have been known to scorch the White House lawn since they entered service in 2024.

Trump announced in July that Sikorsky Aircraft, a Lockheed Martin subsidiary, would pay to construct a new permanent helipad on the South Lawn to protect the grass, at a cost of between $5 million and $6 million. The Washington Post reported in July that the helipad and related work were expected to cost about $13 million.

In early August, aerial photos showed that the helipad featured a presidential seal beginning to take shape. Later in the month, photos showed workers taking apart the seal in an apparent design change.

The Washington Post reported that Trump was unhappy with the lawn's slope. He confirmed the project's regrading to reporters during a tour of the helipad on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.

During the tour, the president signed his name on the back of a piece of granite intended for the helipad's presidential seal, which also bore the inscription "Donald Trump 45-47 president."