The Blue Room...and a bit of rambling 'bout Arlington

Oh....Lordy be.  This room tried to kill us all.  This room and Arlington National Cemetery (in a golf course).  You have no idea.  BUT...like I say time and time again, there is no time for cry babies at this pace and we made it through this one too.  I bring up the cemetery scene because I just have to say it one more time for the record - Bokelberg's directing and the camera work in that cemetery...wow.  Speechless.  Those shots of the soldiers, the folding of the flag, the slow mo salutes and the bugler on the hillside.... sigh.  I just watched the scene again.  And I teared up AGAIN.  Somehow I'm transported out of a tv show and right there next to that widow into the scene.  Just tremendous. 

So.  Now The Blue Room is an actual space in The White House.  It's Oval shaped just like The Oval Office and is used for receiving guests, receptions and sometimes dinners.  The team researched it at great lengths when it popped up in a script last season actually.  It ended up not being used back then...but here it is now.  A transformation of a space.  We started with this:

And we brought in all the blue that makes it The Blue Room.  Blue and gold upholstered furniture, blue and gold drapery and of course lots of dead president art.  I mean...lovely stately art pieces all certain to be amazing enough to have been chosen from The White House Art Collection.  (More about the art in episodes to come.)
 

After all of the fuss and dust settled, we ended up with this.  Ladies and gentlemen I give you The Grant Administrations Blue Room.  This is the space where we saw all those adorable children and reporters and Mellie's speech went off without a hitch...until she rambled on in the hall nearly giving poor Cy another heart attack.