I didn’t know there had been a renovation in 1902. Truman spent most of his second term [1948-1952?] living in Blair House while the interior of White House was stripped down to the outside walls and all the wooden beams were replaced with steel. The interior gutting was so extensive, engineers said it would have been easier just to tear the WH down and start over. This was not done because of the effect it would have had on the national psyche [we were at war in Korea at the time]. The WH was so structurally unsound at that time, that a piano on the second floor fell partially through a first floor ceiling.
I didn’t know there had been a renovation in 1902. Truman spent most of his second term [1948-1952?] living in Blair House while the interior of White House was stripped down to the outside walls and all the wooden beams were replaced with steel. The interior gutting was so extensive, engineers said it would have been easier just to tear the WH down and start over. This was not done because of the effect it would have had on the national psyche [we were at war in Korea at the time]. The WH was so structurally unsound at that time, that a piano on the second floor fell partially through a first floor ceiling.