The White House’s north portico is covered in significant scaffolding, now covered by drapery that was raised in recent days as workers restored exterior columns at the request of President Donald Trump.
The column’s updates reflect the latest efforts in a series of construction projects the president, a former real estate developer, has undertaken both at the White House and throughout Washington, D.C.
Trump spent about six minutes inspecting the columns as his motorcade returned from Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day. On June 9, workers were seen beginning to strip paint and plaster from the Ionic columns. On June 29, a worker in an elevator removed a massive lantern located under the White House canopy and placed its parts in a box.
This week, reporters did live television in front of the White House, now completely covered in scaffolding, with loud booms emanating from ongoing work.
By Thursday afternoon, workers had covered the scaffolding with new drapery printed with images of the columns. A White House spokesman explained the project as “standard restoration work” and “repairs to stone in columns.”
“We took the 150-year-old paint off the columns and repainted them,” Trump told a crowd of supporters in the Rose Garden on Monday, asking if they had noticed the scaffolding.
Trump questioned whether his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, noticed problems with the speakers. “You think he walked into the office and said, ‘I don’t like the shape of the columns’? I don’t think so, Biden. I don’t like the shape of the columns—he didn’t notice those things.”
The White House did not respond to CNN’s request for information about whether there will be more significant changes to the North Portico.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose department oversees White House renovation and restoration projects, attributed the new effort to “attention to detail and understanding how to get it done.”
“He sees the door dents in the columns and says, ‘Look at all these things. They need to be fixed,” Burgum said during a recent appearance on “The Katie Miller Podcast.”
Asked how long the project would take, Burgum said, “It’s going to go very quickly. I think they’ve already been working, maybe about 10 days, but these guys are working very quickly.”
Trump’s White House projects began with the gilding of the Oval Office, followed by changes to the Roosevelt Room and the Cabinet Room. He paved the Rose Garden and demolished the East Wing to make way for a huge ballroom. And on Wednesday, he unveiled a new sign on the exterior of the Palm Room in a photo posted on social media.
“Newly renovated West Wing of the White House, including signage and refurbished walls, maples and plantings!” the president wrote on Truth Social, sharing an image of a “West Wing” sign written in shiny gold font.