Behind-the-scenes look at designing the Obama White House

“PLEASE call me Barack,” the president-elect said to designer Michael Smith when they met in the Obamas’ Chicago home in 2008, right after Barack Obama was voted into office.

“This was the first and last time I did for nearly the next decade,” Smith writes in his new book

Designing History: The Extraordinary Art & Style of the Obama White House,

which he wrote with Margaret Russell, the former editor-in-chief of Architectural Digest.

Using the president’s first name, Smith says, just didn’t seem to show enough respect.

The book – Smith’s sixth – explores his work creating a home for the Obamas at the mansion.

Smith, 56, shares how he planned and executed this once-in-a-lifetime design job, which included the private quarters, Oval Office and many other parts of the White House.

“White House decorators are tasked with creating a comfortable home for the first family, practically overnight,” Russell says.

They should be design problem-solvers and troubleshooters, and they work with “intense logistical restraints within what is essentially an iconic yet timeworn museum”.

For Smith, creating spaces for the Obamas’ daughters, Malia and Sasha, and Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, was the most important aspect of the job.

Smith helped the Obamas select art by noted artists such as Alma Thomas, Josef Albers and Robert Rauschenberg.

The pieces were mixed with antiques in a redo of the Old Family Dining Room. He also made thoughtful changes to bring the house graciously into the modern age.

In Sasha’s and Malia’s rooms, for example, he added cool Anthropologie rugs and replaced formal Georgian-style crystal chandeliers with rainbow-coloured dangling fixtures made by Magpie Art Collective, a South African craft studio.

Smith gracefully upgraded ancient lighting systems throughout the house, adding recessed lighting and dimmers and making sure the museum masterpieces hanging on the walls were properly illuminated.

He advised Michelle Obama on the Pantone blue colour that best represented the bluish-green waters of Hawaii, to be used on the official Obama state china service.

In the first lady’s dressing room and private office, Smith arranged cosy throws and club chairs. In the Obamas’ bedroom, done in soft blues and neutrals, a 19th-century mahogany bed from the White House collection provided “a real sanctuary in a room, a retreat within a retreat”.

He added contemporary swing-arm lamps within the bed curtains to provide light for late-night reading.

In the Oval Office, Smith designed “a no-drama room for a no-drama president,” going with a neutral palette that warmly accented the 19th-century Resolute desk.

He installed a custom rug ringed with favourite Obama quotes from John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King jr and others, and he added an American Shaker bowl – always filled with apples – atop walnut and mica table. The book includes photos of rooms in the private quarters that were never shared with the public, such as Sasha’s and Malia’s bedrooms. |

MICHAEL MUNDY MICHAEL S Smith designed the Obamas’ master bedroom as an elegant refuge. The oatmeal walls and celadon carpet set off the armchairs upholstered in a blue- green cotton blend. The 19th- century mahogany bed is from the White House collection. |