How to prepare your home for a real estate photo shoot

Most of us know that in order to make our home look as amazing as possible we need do simple things such as: 

• Clearing the yard of debris or mowing the yard
• Move the cars out of the driveway
• Put away kids toys, including the pets they're kids too ;)
• General house cleaning
• Turn on all lights - the more light the better
• Open blinds to horizontal or even a slight tilt up
• Shut toliet lids

Now here are a few more that could help your home photograph amazingly well and drastically improve the look of your home in a listing :

• Take down decorations - i.e. It won't always be Christmas at your house or Halloween
• Move ottoman/foot rests from furniture - these take away from the space of the room in the photo
• Turn on outdoor lights
• Kitchen - remove small appliances i.e. the margarita maker, toaster... these take up your counter space
• Turn on any and all specialty lights such as ones underneath the kitchen cabinets
• Clean up that patio/outdoor siting area - even if it's the dead of winter, let's show off what you have! Uncover and clean that grill, open the patio table umbrella, let's show what you love about it!
• Turn off fans - easier to see the fan and plus you don't want to see a blur in the photo
• Hide ALL trash cans - yes they are perfectly fine to have but they are like a small appliance - they serve no purpose in a photo.
• Remove bath mats and or distracting small rugs - these take away from the space and add a distraction in the photo.
• Remove all items from bathroom counter top
• Remove any signs from your yard (Not the Realtors we can shoot around that)
• Level hanging pictures - THIS helps tremendously! This will do wonders for your homes photography. After all photography is all about keeping horizontals - horizontal and verticals - vertical.

These are just a few tips to help you show off the beauty of your home.

(next blog - How to photograph your kitchen)

KahunaDrew