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Show Decorators stay busy at the White House BY DAVID M. MAXFIELD Smithsonian News Service Times change, presidents change and, in the White House public and family rooms, styles and furnishings change too. Fifty years ago, the mansion's second floor west sitting hall, used then and now by the president's family as a private living room, resembled a lush garden sitting. Wicker furniture was" arranged on a checkerboa rd-pa tterned grass rug, and long copper trays containing ferns and blossoming plants bordered the palm-lined palm-lined walls. The deep, fan-topped window had been screened to make an aviary for Lou Henry Hoover's canaries, and inside, a tree provided a place for the birds to perch and sing. Today, what was once the airy sun room is President and Mrs. Reagan's pale yellow sitting room, a comf orta ble-looking space containing the family's own furniture, collections, photographs and art shipped east from California. Throughout the family quarters on the White House second and third floors, extensively refurbished rooms and halls reflect the Reagans' twin goals of making 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue a place to call home as well as a showcase for the valuable historic furnishings collected by their predecessors. "I believe very strongly that the White House is a special place and should represent the best our nation has to offer," Nancy Reagan told the Smithsonian News Service in response to questions submitted to her about the refurbishing project. "I think the people want it that way." Untfl recently, however, many of the valuable and historic antiques dating back to the republic's earliest decades "were sitting in the warehouse," Mrs. Reagan said. "Insufficient funds did not permit renovating and restoring them to their proper condition," she added, and. as a consequence,, many pieces were "deteriorating" while reproductions were substituted throughout the livine Quarters. that is allocated to an incoming administration for redecorating was considered insufficient for repairing, reupholstering and regilding the furniture as well as for necessary maintenance work throughout the White House. "So many things needed to be done, but the funds weren't there," Peter McCoy, deputy assistant to the president and director of staff for the first lady, said. The Reagans subsequently raised $822,640 in both "large" and "small" private donations for the now completed work, which included the furniture restoration; painting, sanding and refinishing floors for the first time in 20 years; and replacing worn and sun-damaged sun-damaged carpets, wallcoverings, wall-coverings, curtains and upholstery. Today, White House Usher Rex Scouten estimates that "95 percent" of the "important" items in the White House collection are in use. "I really didn't want to ask for taxpayer money from Congress at a time we were trying to cut back on the budget," Mrs. Reagan said. "So I decided to return the $50,000 decorating allowance to the goverment and the taxpayers" With several exceptions, such as painting certain State and ground floor rooms, adding a priceless sofa to the blue room and cleaning the mansion's marble fireplaces, the project was confined to the family quarters; the State rooms had been extensively restored during the Kennedy and Nixon administrations. In the 16 decades since the White House was burned by the British in 1814 and reconstructed, it-has it-has undergone five major changes not counting the Regans' alterations beginninng with the Monroe presidency ( 1817-25) 1817-25) and covering projects by Presidents Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy. The White House, as newly renovated, represents all periods of American history,' with the focus on Federal period furnishings of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. On display are tables, chairs, prints, paintings, sofas, objects of art, candelbra, sculpture "The walls are groaning with things we recovered from storage," the Reagans decorator, Ted Graber, ! told the News Service. "We really ended up " having a treasure hunt. """Alter the 1980 election Mrs. Reagan decided that the historic pieces should be removeq from ' the warehouse restored and returned" to the. White Hgigg, where thev could be ised and preserved. But the $50,0M alloffaaM |