The first family's private dining room is known variously as the "President's Dining Room" or "Family Residence Dining Room" but should not be confused with the President's Dining Room in the West Wing, which is also sometimes called the "Oval Office Dining Room" (and is sometimes actually a study), or with the Family Dining Room on the first floor of the Residence. It started as just another bedroom on the second floor.
By the time of the Lincoln administration in the mid-19th century, it had become used as a state guest room and was known as the "Prince of Wales Room," since the Prince of Wales had stayed there in 1860 during the Buchanan administration. Later, it became the master bedroom for the McKinleys and was later used as a bedroom for Alice, the elder daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, and then Helen, the daughter of William Howard Taft. In 1929, the Hoovers moved the Lincoln bed here and made it the Lincoln Bedroom.
The Truman family moved the bed to the southeast suite and called that the Lincoln Bedroom. This room became daughter Margaret's sitting room both before and after the reconstruction. It was here that one of the legs of the piano broke through the floor, prompting structural engineers to evaluate the whole house and decide that it was only still standing "out of habit" and begin the complete gutting and reconstruction of the mansion.
