How To Prepare Your Home For A Photo Shoot

Photo Shoot Checklist

Preparation

This post, How To Prepare Your Home For A Photo Shoot will help you prepare for your photo shoot! In my opinion, the most important part of marketing real estate today is the photos. This is simply because your homes first impression is how it looks online. And you know the saying, “you never get a second chance to make a first impression”.

Less is More

What we look for in our photos is a clean, neat and clutter free home. It’s not always about “what’s in” the photos as much as it is “what’s not” in the photos. This is clearly a situation of where “less is more”. As you’ll see in the checklist that follows we will be asking you to “remove”or “hide” lots of items.

Tip: Go into each room in your house. Ask yourself the following question: If this room were photographed in a Better Homes and Garden magazine, what would not be in the picture? In most cases the answer is: the item that wouldn’t be in that magazine, is what needs to be removed! It’s really that simple.

Smaller is Bigger

Another important aspect of your home’s online impression is the concept of “smaller is bigger”. One of our biggest goals and challenges is to stage a home so it feels bigger than it is!

Read: Staging Your Home For Success

Obviously if the home is 2,500 square feet we can’t physically make it bigger. But we can make it look bigger! Furniture stores today sell big comfortable furniture. That’s great when your watching a movie in your den, but not great when you home is for sale. So to make a home show bigger both during showings and online, we remove furniture. The idea is to create open floor space. The more open a room feels the bigger it seems. An easy example would be why people today think open floor plans are better! Homes with open plan are not always bigger, they just feel less cluttered and tight.

So what’s the solution for too much furniture? Well, it isn’t always remove it or replace it with something smaller. Often what we do is come in and help folks re-purpose what they already have. Simply, it may be as easy as moving one chair from a crowded den into another room. Or, moving the couch to another wall to open the room up. Other common ideas would be to remove the center leaf from a table, or removing extra dining chairs. We’ve helped clients with this hundreds of times and it always produces great results.

Line of Sight

The eye of the camera needs to have a clear line of sight. What may look like beautiful decorating in person may not photograph well. Tall chairs or couches, big tables, room dividers, all block the line of sight for the camera. Most people never see this until they take some photos of their home. So what items in your home could potentially break up a good shot? Just get out the phone and take a few pictures.

Tip: Go online and look at the Homes For Sale In Your Area and critic their photo’s. Notice what looks good and what doesn’t and then apply those ideas to your preparation.

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How To Prepare Your Home For A Photo Shoot – Mindset

So what is the biggest hurdle when you want to Prepare Your Home For A Photo Shoot? It’s mindset. You have to understand a couple things:

• Your agent is on your side; we want to help you sell your home. We are not just creating work for you; we are on your team. If your home doesn’t show it’s best, in person and online, it will take longer to sell. And…often for less money than it would if the home was prepared the right way.
• When your home is on the market, it’s no longer the home you live in. It’s now the home you are selling! If in the end, getting top dollar is the goal, it will be worth your effort.
  

Below are our best ideas and tips for How to Prepare Your Home For A Photo Shoot. We’ve complied this list based on years of experience in real life situations. When done right, with our guidance, our clients have had great results and you will too!

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How To Prepare Your Home For A Photo Shoot –The Checklist

Exterior

• You’ll want to move cars and trucks from the front and rear of the house and close garage doors. This would include any cars or trucks on the street in front of the home if possible.
• You’ll also want to move trashcans and recycling bins out of sight or inside the garage or shed.
• Hide all garden hoses.
• Remove any newspapers or other items from driveway and sweep clean the driveway and all walkways.
• Wash off any chalk drawings the day before the shoot.
• On the deck or patio, open umbrellas, remove grill covers and put the cushions on furniture. Make the deck or patio look like it is being used everyday.
• Clean patio furniture but don’t wash to prevent any stains or puddles.
• Hide all toys and sporting equipment in the garage or storage shed.
• Hide any and all outside pet dishes or pet toys.
• Remove and dispose any pet waste in the yard.
• Remove any security or real estate signs from the yard and the windows.
• Open the swimming pool if needed. Clean the pool, remove covers and hide pool equipment and supplies.
• If needed mow rake and water the yard 24 hours before the shoot. Not the day of the shoot. DO NOT WATER THE DAY OF THE SHOOT
• Turn off all outdoor ceiling fans.
• Cut on all exterior lights and make sure to replace any burned out bulbs.

Interior

• Turn on all interior lights and open all curtains and blinds.
• Replace all burned out light bulbs.
• Clean mirrors, refrigerators, windows, television screens, etc. Anything that will show hand or finger prints that reflect light.
• Hide all pet beds, toys, bowls, etc. in a closet or storage container.
• Remove excessive items of art or decor hanging from walls.
• Remove family photos or anything you wouldn’t want shown on the Internet.
• Hide any items that you don’t want photographed in closets or storage areas.
• Clean all ceiling fans and HVAC supply and return registers.
• Turn off all ceiling fans and fireplaces.

Kitchen

• Clear items from your countertops. You want it to seem like there is endless counter space.
• Remove dishtowels, soup dishes, sanitizer, sponges etc. and remove any small area rugs.
• Remove the garbage can from view along any pet food bowls, mats and other items.
• Take all items off of the refrigerator.

Bedroom

• Make all beds and be sure the mattress and box springs are not showing.
• Make sure you remove any objects under the bed so they don’t show in the pictures.
• Hide all of your personal items.
• In the children’s rooms, remove any personal items or items with their names on them.

Dining Areas

• To make the dining area film bigger, remove any extra leaves in the table.
• Remove any table clothes or pads to show off the beauty of the table.
• Relocate extra dining room chairs. Less is more!

Living Areas

• Remove any throw rugs. They make the rooms feel smaller.
• Turn off all television sets.
• Remove portable electronics from view
• Empty tabletops.
• Remove clutter from end tables and coffee table. No Magazines, pictures remotes, phone chargers etc.

Bathrooms

• Clean thoroughly, and clean again. Make is sparkle.
• Clean mirror.
• Remove all toiletries, mats and cleaning tools.
• Store daily use bath and hand towels.
• Add fresh clean, colorful, neatly hung towels.
• Remove all toiletries from the tub and the shower. No toothpaste, shampoo, razors, toothbrushes, etc.
• Add a fresh roll of toilet paper.
• All toilet seats down!

Front Door

• Make sure the front door is clean and crisp. The front door sets the tone for the first impression.
• Replace worn hardware, doorknobs, hinges, door knocker, etc.
• Paint with a fresh coat of paint if needed. No chipping, peeling or cracking paint.

Foyer

• The first room of the home entered by a buyer is the most important.
• Remove anything that crowds this area. Benches, coats racks, throw rugs. This area has to feel as big as possible.

Curb Appeal

• Trim all shrubs as far in advance of the photo session as possible Bushes in from of the home should not block the view of the home from the street.
• Trim shrubs down to below the windows.
• Remove over grown shrubs that crowd each other and the walkways.
• Place fresh mulch or pine straw in the beds.
• Edge the yard the at the curb, walkways and driveways.

How To Prepare Your Home For A Photo Shoot – Conclusion

It may seem like a daunting task To Prepare Your Home For A Photo Shoot. However the reward will be more money in your pocket and a shorter time on the market. Basically the time and effort put in to preparing your home will pay big dividends in the end.

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If you’d like a printed version of this checklist please feel free to fill out the form below and request one. We’ll be happy to email it out to you!
And as always, if you are buying or selling in Charleston we’d like to help! Bill Byrd 843-972-7670

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Contact Us at 843-972-7670

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