Interview

Cynthia Rowley in the Oval Office, ready for a Change.

In this first installment of question of the week, Glenn O'Brien asks designer Cynthia Rowley: How would you redecorate the White House?

Cynthia Rowley: Out with the old, in with the new. When you see the Presidential Cadillac loaded down with Ikea furniture, you know change is in store.

Good habits start at home. Why shouldn't the White House have a green roof with solar panels and a couple of wind turbines on the great lawn?

It's time to replace the stuffy art with contemporary work. I'd switch the portrait of William Taft with Philip Taaffe, Andrew Jackson with Matthew Day Jackson and William McKinley with Ryan McGinley.

The girls should be able to have some fun. I'd re-do Tricky Dick's bowling alley as a tricked-out skate ramp, build in a fireman's pole from the kids' room to the kitchen for midnight snacks and install a foam pit at the bottom of one of the banisters.

And for when the pressure gets to Dad—a top-secret smoking spot just off the Oval Office.