Summertime renovations timed around a president’s vacation are a regular occurrence in the White House. This year, long-sought upgrades to the basement Situation Room, repaving the driveway, cleaning the windows, replacing stone pavers and sprucing up the South Lawn are among the projects. President Joe Biden isn’t planning any major updates to the Oval Office, as his two recent predecessors did during their first August getaways. He has made some changes since taking office, however, including setting up a small television set directly behind the Resolute Desk. All presidents find living and working in the 222-year-old White House comes with challenges. Biden has been open about finding life in the White House restrictive and has spent more than a quarter of his presidency in Delaware, where he maintains two homes. The building is maintained to a museum-level standard, but upkeep is required nearly constantly, and systems sometimes break down. Doing that work while the President is out of town is usually preferable for the teams of painters, carpenters, electricians and landscapers who descend on the building in August to make the repairs. Biden is spending this week between his homes in Delaware, and spent last week on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, where reporters caught sight of him riding his bike down the sand. 📸: Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images