Welcome to Heart into your Home, I’m Niki Luther and today I’m telling you how to make your home photo ready before listing it, or just posting it on Instagram.
Making our homes look as good as the interior designers we follow on Instagram is a lot harder than it seems! Maybe you even bought the exact same rug and dining room table as one of your favorites and when you take a photo it looks a lot less “Crate and Barrel” and a lot more like the house you lived in in college.
Here are some tips I give my clients to make their home stand out in photos, whether it’s for the MLS or just on Instagram!
The first step is making it look, “lived in”. You don’t want too much out but you also don’t want it to look like no one lives there or it can have a sterile feel. Remove personal photos, sports trophies, save the dates on the fridge and the stack of mail that never seems to leave the counter. To take it a step further, purchase some decorative baskets to stack rolled up towels in or extra blankets. It’s a fine line between looking “lived in” vs screaming “HEY! WE LIVE HERE!”
The second step is to accessorize with greenery – a vase of fresh flowers on the kitchen island, a potted succulent on the bathroom counter and some faux green plants in cute baskets for the living room.
Third, brighten the place up! Make sure all of your curtains and blinds are open for photos. To increase your natural light, you could remove window screens and store them in the garage. Your house will likely look better from the outside without them as well!
Get colorful! If you followed the general advice to go neutral, your home is likely a good shade of white, beige or light gray. You’ll want to break that up a bit by adding colors within the accessories you use. This could be incorporated in your rugs, throw pillows, framed artwork and decorative vases.
Clean your house so your floors, countertops and appliances are looking shiny. Wash your windows, straighten your curtains and freshen up items before the photographer comes. Fluff the pillows, make sure the blanket on the couch looks like it’s supposed to be there but not perfectly laid out. Move furniture and accent pieces around to see how they look best.
Style, edit and style some more!
I made a really fun reel with photos and examples over on my Instagram. Come follow me over there and we can be friends. I love sharing ALL things Home with a little bit of everything mixed in.
Thank you so much for joining me, I hope you will stay awhile!
-Niki Luther
Heart into Your Home 