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Trump's Oval Office redo includes gold-painted Home Depot moldings says internet: a pictorial diary [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-09-09
The internet has identified a possible source of Trump’s gimcrack gold additions to the Oval Office’s decor: The Home Depot. You be the judge. The picture below shows Trump’s new stick-on fireplace molding juxtaposed with an unpainted $58 polyurethane appliqué onlay molding from the big box DIY giant.
I’ll grant you, they are not exactly the same. But the two share a distinct similarity. If you give the Home Depot version a quick spray of gold-colored paint, you would have siblings.
Let’s also note that Home Depot’s co-founder, Ken Langone, is a MAGA. Langone has announced that he is “sold on Trump.” Who he thinks has “got a good shot at going down in history as one of our best presidents ever.” It could be that Ken is hoping for some repeat business.
Below is the product on the Home Depot website, along with its dimensions. The item is essentially 1’ 3” x 3’ — which appears to be in the ballpark, size-wise, with Trump’s fireplace header moldings (see picture at the top.)
At first sight, the Oval Office’s redo in Las Vegas hotel-lobby chic is a general assault on good taste. But once the shock wears off, the true nature of the offense becomes apparent.
Taken individually, the oil paintings of past Presidents and other notable Americans are typical of that sort of thing. The frames are gilded by artisans. Well-curated and hung at an appropriate height, with sufficient distance between each other, no one could object to the art. It’s a slice of American history in the American President’s house. Why not?
You could say the same for the gold cups/trophies/urns on the mantelpiece. Although they are likely gold-plated silver rather than solid gold. If they were in a trophy case or displayed individually and not jammed together, they would be unremarkable.
Sadly, you cannot say the same for the Home Depot style moldings. They have no rationale, nor a guiding aesthetic principle. They are just stuck on wherever there is a space, with no consideration for theme or relationship. The only rule is symmetry, which is the last refuge of a scoundrel with poor taste.
The overall effect of the ill-considered excess is that of a movie prop storeroom rather than the work product of an interior designer who knew what they were doing.
Trump and the MAGAs are constantly bleating about honoring America’s history. Fine. Let them live up to their words. This is what the first iteration of the Oval Office looked like.
First Oval Office photo (1909 Taft presidency)
If they want a little more color, then take a cue from George Washington’s Mount Vernon.
Mount Vernon
Or Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.
Monticello
Or for something more recent, FDR’s Hyde Park.
Hyde Park
However, if Trump feels compelled to dial it to 11, then he should go over the top with style, like Cornelius Vanderbilt’s mansion in Newport, RI, The Breakers.
The Breakers
That’s how you do immoderation with panache.
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