"I'm good at building things," the former property magnate said earlier this month as he announced perhaps the biggest project of all, a huge new $200-million ballroom at the US executive mansion.

Trump made his fortune developing glitzy hotels and casinos branded with his name. Critics say the makeover Trump has given the White House in his second presidency is of a similar style.

Parts of it now resemble his brash Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, particularly the newly paved-over Rose Garden with its picnic tables and yellow and white umbrellas.

During Trump's first term the British style writer Peter York dubbed his style "dictator chic," comparing it to that of foreign autocrats.

But Trump has also recently unveiled a grand vision for the entire US capital.

And he has explicitly tied his desire to "beautify" Washington to his recent crackdown on crime, which has seen him deploy troops in the Democratic-run city, where just two months ago he held a military parade on his birthday.

"This is a ratcheting up of the performance of power," Peter Loge, director of George Washington University's School of Media, told AFP.

"That's what he does. Puts his name on bibles and casinos, so the logic makes complete sense. Except now he's playing with lives, the reputation of the United States and a democratic legacy." 

Oval bling 

Trump is far from the first president to carry out major renovations at the White House in its 225-year history.

Franklin Roosevelt oversaw construction of the current Oval Office in 1934, Harry Truman led a major overhaul that ended in 1951 and John F. Kennedy created the modern Rose Garden in 1961.

The White House Historical Association put Trump's changes in context, saying the building was a "living symbol of American democracy, evolving while enduring as a national landmark."

Its president, Stewart McLaurin, said in an essay in June that renovations throughout history had drawn criticism from the media and Congress over "costs, historical integrity and timing." 

"Yet many of these alterations have become integral to the identity of the White House, and it is difficult for us to imagine the White House today without these evolutions and additions," he wrote.

Trump's changes are nevertheless the furthest reaching for nearly a century.

Soon after his return he began blinging up the Oval Office walls with gold trim and trinkets that visiting foreign leaders have been careful to praise. 

Then he ordered the famed grass of the Rose Garden to be turned into a patio. Trump said he did so because women's high-heeled shoes were sinking into the turf. 

After it was finished, Trump installed a sound system and AFP reporters could regularly hear music from his personal playlist blaring from the patio.

Trump has also installed two huge US flags on the White House lawns, and a giant mirror on the West Wing colonnade in which the former reality TV star can see himself as he leaves the Oval.

'Big beautiful face' 

Billionaire Trump says he is personally funding those improvements. But his bigger plans will need outside help.

The White House said the new ballroom planned for the East Wing by the end of his term in January 2029 will be funded by Trump "and other patriot donors." 

Trump meanwhile says he expects Congress to agree to foot the $2 billion bill for his grand plan to spruce up Washington.

On a trip to oil-rich Saudi Arabia in May Trump admired the "gleaming marvels" of the skyline -- and he appears intent on creating his own gleaming capital.

That ranges from a marble plated makeover at the Kennedy Center for the performing arts to getting rid of graffiti and -- ever the construction boss -- fixing broken road barriers and laying new asphalt.

But Trump's Washington plans also involve a crackdown by the National Guard that he has threatened to extend to other cities like Chicago.

He has repeatedly said of the troop presence that Americans would "maybe like a dictator" -- even as he rejects his opponents' claims that he's acting like one.

Trump's own face even looms above Washington streets from huge posters on the labor and agriculture departments.

"Mr President, I invite you to see your big beautiful face on a banner in front of the Department of Labor," Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer said Tuesday at a cabinet meeting.