Preparing to Photograph Your Property

Preparing to Photography Your Property

Professional Staging vs DIY

Professional Staging Services

Professional staging services are not common but worth the money and time you save in using them. Professional stagers work with you to do everything listed in this post. Then they take it a couple of steps further.

First, they will look at the furniture arrangement and optimize it for each room. Consider each room as a group of smaller functional areas. If your areas are not organized properly, they will help you fix it. They will discuss with you what furniture should stay and what furniture should be removed. In most cases they will even have furniture that you can rent to address any issues that they find.

Once your space is organized properly, the staging professional will look at decorative items. These items should:

Direct the eye to the features of your home.
Create a welcoming and warm environment for anyone that enters your home.
Balance the room color. Sometimes the additions are complementary. Other times the additions introduce a touch of contrast. In either case, the additions will make the room or space pop!

Why do professional stagers do so much more. A stager is preparing your space for listing. Staging the home is preferred for photography. But it is not unreasonable to back off to just what is necessary to photograph the location. Which brings us to the list of things that the agent and the homeowner can do themselves.

Do it Yourself

There is a little collector inside all of us. When the collector gets out of control, we call this hoarding. We are not talking about hoarding.

However, from the day you move into your home you begin collecting. This will make my counter look nice. That goes perfectly with my metal clock and the blue sofa beneath it. I need a new coffee maker. My old one still works but doesn’t do all that I want. So, you end up with two of them. All this is the work of the little collector inside.

The problem begins when we don’t let any of the stuff we collect go. So over time, the home that you barely fit into becomes cramped without enough storage space. And over time this builds up to clutter. And clutter has the greatest impact on the quality of the photographs that we take.

So how do we address clutter. The most common statement in the Do-It-Yourself checklist is “Clear and clean the counters. Then return one or two decorative items. Box and store the remaining items.”

DIY Checklist

General Preparation

Clean: windows, mirrors, and floors
Paint wall scuffs
Store all personal items – particularly imagery and information about children under the age of 18.
Store religious items
Store small interior rugs. These are not your area rugs. These are the small rugs that we use to hide or protect small areas of common use.

Exterior

Generally, clean up the front and rear yards
Clean pool and store all equipment used with the pool
Store flags; hoses; gardening equipment; children’s toys; pet bowls, blankets, and chains.
Clean Porch – remove any décor that you don’t intend to include with the home
Check for pet waste and remove.
Store garbage bins and any waste containers in the garage.
Park cars away from the house or in the garage if there is room. Do not obstruct the view to the house or the garage.

Lighting

Turn on all interior lighting – this includes cabinet lighting, nightstand lights, and any other secondary source of lighting in each room
Replace any burnt out bulbs

Entry or Mud Room

Store shoes in closets
Store coats in closets

Kitchen

Clear your counters and clean them. Add back up to three decorative items. Do not add back things like hand soap, cleaning sponges, phones, charging cords, etc. Add back appliances if they don’t clutter the space.
Store all refrigerator bedazzling. This includes photographs, magnets, artwork, etc.
Open curtain
Blinds should be set consistently open. They should all be set at approximately the same angle, and you should be able to see out of the room. If they are damaged and are not going to be replaced, you can roll them up. However, if you do this for one you should do it for all of them. Consistency is the key here.

Bathrooms

Clear your counters and clean them. Add decorative items that don’t clutter the space. Do not add back things like hand soap, cleaning sponges, phones, charging cords, toothbrushes, hairbrushes, etc.
Store toiletries. This includes toilet paper. Generally, I store toilet paper behind the toilet. It can’t be seen, and it is still available in the event of an emergency.
Bedrooms / Dining Rooms / Living Rooms

Bedrooms / Dining Rooms / Living Rooms – Main Living Spaces

Blinds should be set consistently open. They should all be set at approximately the same angle, and you should be able to see out of the room. If they are damaged and are not going to be replaced, you can roll them up. However, if you do this for one you should do it for all of them. Consistency is the key here.
Store area rugs under three feet on both sides. This does not include runners which are under three feet on only one side.
Clear and clean all counters, nightstands, desks, and surface areas.
Pets

Pets

The best choice is to have them boarded for the day. But this is not always an option. In these cases, they should be kept outside while the photographer is working inside and inside while the photographer is working outside.