He's been described as "professorial" and out of touch with the common man, but six years after moving into the White House, President Obama is determined to show that not only is he in touch, he's also on-trend. According to inside sources, when the 44th president of the United States and his family vacate the presidential mansion in early 2017, they'll be moving into a tiny house.

And not just any tiny house. A tiny White House.

Yes, George W. Bush has an 8,501-square-foot-home in Dallas—within easy reach of his Crawford-area ranch, an additional 4,000 square feet of living space set on 1,583 acres. Bill and Hillary Clinton have homes in Chappaqua, NY, and Washington, DC, totaling 10,384 square feet. The White House itself has 55,000 square feet and sits on 18 acres. And come January 2017, Barack, Michelle, and Sasha Obama—Malia will have left the nest for college—will be squeezing into a 650-square-foot replica of the presidential mansion, set on 4 acres of land in Potomac, MD.

"You know, the president wasn't that keen on the White House when they first moved in, but it really grew on him," said a highly placed aide, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. "Plus, the first lady just got it decorated the way she likes."

Admittedly, a tiny White House won't have much room for the modern art with which Michelle Obama had adorned the real thing. "There will just be one painting, on loan from the Smithsonian," the aide admitted.

Bob Carver, owner of Historic Mansions in Miniature, said he couldn't comment on rumors that he had custom-designed and constructed a shrunken version of the presidential digs, but he waxed eloquent on the tiny house trend.

"These days, people really want to focus on what's important," he said in a phone interview. "They want to scale down, get rid of the essentials, get closer to each other and to nature. On the other hand, they might also want to hang on to a bit of the grandeur that they're used to from their former life."

Just how would one scale down the White House, hypothetically speaking?

"Well, you know the East Wing and the West Wing?" Carver said. "They'd be more like bay windows."

The Secret Service likes the idea, said an unnamed agent, also speaking on condition of anonymity by phone, from what sounded like a noisy bar. "It's really easy to set up a perimeter," the agent said. As for where the security detail will stay, it seems there will be "a sort of lean-to out back."

Bo, the Obama family dog, will also get his own house. At 8 square feet, it'll be about 1/80th the size of the main residence.

Although there had been speculation that the Obamas would return to Chicago or perhaps buy a residence in Hawaii, where the president grew up and where his family has spent many vacations, family requirements dictated that they stay within the Beltway.

"The president and first lady didn't want to leave the DC area during Sasha's last year at Friends," said the aforementioned highly placed aide, referring to the exclusive Sidwell Friends School in Washington. "This allows them to be within easy reach of school, but also still plugged into the power network, but off the grid as well. I mean, they'll have Internet and everything, more like metaphorically off the grid. It's about 40 miles away... No, I mean 20. Actually, I'm not sure. I live in Georgetown."

But the soon-to-be-former first family won't have any trouble getting anywhere they need to go—there will be a helipad on the back of the lot.