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eople ask what it’s like to live in the White House. I sometimes say that it’s a
bit like what I imagine living in a fancy hotel might be like, only the fancy hotel
has no other guests in it—just you and your family. There are fresh flowers
everywhere, with new ones brought in almost every day. The building itself feels
old and a little intimidating. The walls are so thick and the planking on the floors
so solid that sound in the residence seems to get absorbed quickly. The windows
are grand and tall and also fitted with bomb-resistant glass, kept shut at all times
for security reasons, which further adds to the stillness. The place is kept
immaculately clean. There’s a staff made up of ushers, chefs, housekeepers,
florists, and also electricians, painters, and plumbers, everyone coming and going
politely and quietly, doing their best to keep a low profile, waiting until you’ve
moved out of a room before slipping in to change the towels or put a fresh
gardenia in the little vase at the side of your bed.

The rooms are big, all of them. Even the bathrooms and closets are built on
a scale different from anything I’d ever encountered. Barack and I were surprised
by how much furniture we had to pick out in order to make each room feel
homey. Our bedroom had not just a king-sized bed—a beautiful four-poster with
a wheat-colored cloth canopy overhead—but also a fireplace and a sitting area,
with a couch, a coffee table, and a couple of upholstered chairs. There were five
bathrooms for the five of us living in the residence, plus another ten spare
bathrooms to go with them. I had not just a closet but a spacious dressing room
adjoining it—the same room from which Laura Bush had shown me the Rose
Garden view. Over time, this became my de facto private office, the place where
I could sit quietly and read, work, or watch TV, dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of