Donald Trump is “obsessing” over remodelling the White House, says Marc Caputo in Axios. Aides say the US president has spent as many as 20 hours on some projects, engaging in “impromptu design sessions” between negotiations on the Middle East and the government shutdown. He has already “gilded” the Oval Office – described by one sniffy New York Times columnist as a “rococo nightmare” – and replaced some of the newer oaks, birches and maples on the South Lawn with broader-canopied trees. The Rose Garden lawn has been paved over, and work has begun on a $250m ballroom for which the president has been involved in every tiny detail: the plumbing, the materials, the size of the windows. One aide says he is “literally the project manager”.

Trump is enormously proud of these renovations. He stopped an Oval Office meeting with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to “show off the new outdoor Bang & Olufsen sound system” – the same brand he has at Mar-a-Lago. After strong-arming Benjamin Netanyahu into agreeing a Gaza ceasefire two weeks ago, he led the Israeli PM on a 40-minute tour of the interior décor changes he’d made (Finnish President Alexander Stubb got the same treatment last week.) When a delegation of Florida lawmakers visited last month, Trump spent well over an hour showing them the new tiled floors in the Lincoln Bedroom ensuite – “statuary marble” he had chosen himself. “He’s stamping his legacy on the presidency and on the White House forever,” says one senior adviser. “No one can get rid of the ballroom. It will be difficult to take all of the gold away.”

🏛️ Trump isn’t done yet. His next building project is to create a giant arch at the end of Washington’s Memorial Bridge, opposite the Lincoln Memorial. It has already been nicknamed the “Arc de Trump”.

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THE WELSH COTTAGE This 18th-century yellow ochre farmhouse sits in more than 12 acres on the Cambrian range in West Wales, says The Guardian. On the ground floor is the kitchen with a cream Aga, a generous pantry, a dining room, which has views of the surrounding hills, a sitting room and a library. Upstairs are the four bedrooms, one of which is ensuite, and a family bathroom. Outside, there is a large barn and a wood-fired pizza oven, as well as a kitchen garden and a thriving orchard. The bustling town of Llandeilo is a 17-minute drive. £850,000. Click on the image to see the listing.

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