How to Prepare for the Ultimate Home Staging Photos
In order to sell your house fast, you need to know how to set up your house for home staging photos. How do you prepare your home for home staging photos? Read on to learn 12 pro tips you may not have considered.
If you’re trying to sell your home, you know how important home staging photos are. The photos you take of your home can make or break a sale. Keep reading to uncover how to prepare your home for the best home staging photos possible.
Design For the Camera With Home Staging Photos
When you’re putting together your space, you’re probably thinking of the camera first. Wondering if this angle looks right, or how can you show off the best features of your home. You’re probably also wondering if the light is hitting the space properly.
When staging a home for the market, it’s best to take test pictures as you design. This way you can see any errors in lighting, symmetry, and cleanliness which you can fix along the way.
Get Rid Of Wrinkles
In real life, if your sheets are wrinkles it doesn’t matter. You’ll still sleep in them and wake up feeling refreshed, regardless if you iron your sheets or not.
The camera hates wrinkles and pick up those wrinkly sheets making them look so much worse than they are to the naked eye.
You’ll want to use a professional steamer to get out all the wrinkles on your beds and curtains. Hot steam will remove wrinkles from pillows, sheets, shower curtains making your home camera ready.
Light It Up
With pictures, light can either be your best friend or your worse enemy. It all depends on your ability to control light. Weather and the time of day can make a huge difference in how your photos turn out.
For example, if you have the afternoon sun blazing into your room, adding harsh shadows, your photo will look blown out. There will be areas that are super dark and then bright which isn’t appealing to the eye.
To fix this problem, you will want to find a time where there is indirect sunlight outside and inside your space. The perfect day to take photos is on cloudy days. You will also want to turn on any of your lamps and lights to help even out the lighting in your space.
Fluff The Carpet
Make sure that your carpets don’t have harsh vacuum lines or matted, old and tired looking carpets. To fix this, fluff up your tired wall to wall carpets by going over them with a broom.
You’ll want to run the broom over the top of the carpet in various directions. This will bring new life to your space.
Look Beyond The Window
Sure, you are shooting the interior of your home. But keep in mind the outside of your windows will also be seen in these photos. Meaning if there are piles of trash covered with blue tarps outside, you will see that in the photos.
Clean up the area outside of your windows. You want outside to look quiet visually, so it doesn’t draw any extra attention. If the area outside your house can’t be cleaned, consider putting a frosted film on your window.
Limit The Colors
You’ll want to limit the amount of color in your home, and instead use neutrals like black, white, brown, grey, cream, beige, silver and sometimes a little gold. You can use as many neutrals in a room as you desire.
Neutrals make a great base for color, but you still want to use colors sparingly. Try to have one color story per room. A color story can be reds, blues, or the colors of a peacock, such as teals and yellows.
If you have over one color story per room, then your pictures will come out visually noisy and chaotic.
Symmetry, Repetition & Rhythm
You will see symmetry, repetition, and rhythm throughout nature, and humans find this to be pleasing aesthetically. You will see symmetry on most insects and animals. While repetition explains why flowers are pleasing, as rhythm lies in the ripples of a sand dune.
A quick and easy way to make any space more visually pleasing is to rely on symmetry, repetition, and rhythm.
Design For The Best Angle
Instead of stressing about what every angle looks like, which can drive you insane. Design for one view and the rest will fall into place. Decide where the camera will go, and then make every other decision based on that.
Hire A Professional Photographer
This is key, especially if your spending money to get your house staged, get a professional photographer. A professional photographer will end up saving you money and knows the best way to make your home look stunning. If you want great photos, you will need a great photographer.
Put Down The Toilet Seat
Seems obvious, no? You’d be surprised how many people take pictures of their bathroom with the toilet seat up. Put the seat down.
Get Out Of the Mirror
Another reason to hire a professional photographer. If you are taking the pictures yourself, get out of the mirror.
Nothing looks worse than being in the mirror of that shot of your bathroom, except maybe that toilet seat that’s still up. Your house is for sale, not you.
Furnish Your House But Don’t Over Do It
Empty houses are hard to sell because they’re hard to see. Furniture helps show scale, use and can even give a little extra light to your space.
Without furniture, your home is just windows, walls, ceilings, and floors. You want to show potential buyers how your space can be used, and how big your space is.
You don’t want to overdo it. You don’t want to hit a point in decorating where the decoration becomes more about the design than the house itself.
Get Your Home Camera Ready
Now that you know everything about home staging photos, start making these changes today. Remember, to make these photos really look their best, get a professional photographer. When you work with VerraTerra, we provide staging tips for your home and a professional home photosgrapher. Interested in help? Contact VerraTerra today.
