Whether a home is being photographed for a magazine or readied for a quick sale, it's carefully staged to look cozy, inviting and full of life. Bring those qualities into your home with some of the tricks that stylists use.
- Clean and declutter: Clear surfaces and repair surface damage. Apply furniture oil to cabinets to bring up their shine, polish shiny metallic surfaces with a microfiber cloth and cull magazines.
- Bring in nature: Whether it's a potted plant or a single tulip in a small vase, nature adds life to any space. If your funds are tight, buy a pre-made mixed bouquet or bunch of flowers and break it up, sprinkling a few blooms in each room. A bowl of fruit or vegetables can also do the trick.
- Towels: Beautiful towels signal luxury in even the smallest of bathrooms. Hang a folded hand towel or two within easy reach of the sink, hang generous sized body and hair towels on hooks near the bath or shower. White towels are always fresh but you can also use colored towels. Match them to the color of the bathroom, pick up a color in the tiles or use a contrasting color for drama.
- Minimal but beautiful products in the bathroom: If you can't store all of your products, consider how what's left out is displayed. Grouping items by color or shape is one way to bring order to your smallest room.
- Make the living room, livable: A throw across the arm of a sofa, a pile of books or magazines on the coffee table, remotes in a pretty bowl sitting on the floor at the corner of the couch — these touches dosn't only look good in a magazine, they work for your real life too.
- Group items in odd numbers: Collections are most pleasing to the eye when grouped in odd numbers (with an even number, your brain will be distracted trying to pair up the objects).
- Balance bare areas with decorated areas: You don't need to fill every space.
- Vary the height of a grouping: One tall vase with two smaller ones, for example.
- Display similar items together: Putting them together creates greater impact and tells a story. (If you saw trophies scattered around a house, you might make a mental note to ask your host about them; grouped together, they're the jumping off point for a conversation about the accomplishments they signal.)
- Corral items in bowls or on trays: Pile your remotes in a bowl, gather your lotions and potions on a tray, cram your most used kitchen utensils in a vase near your stove.
- Finishing touch: get out your digital camera, step back and take a picture of your home to get an objective look at it. Happy with the results? Email it to us for a house tour!
Image: Jon and Tyke's Modern Cabin
Small Cool Lessons: Discovering Small Space Design Ideas That Really Work
Marisa and Peter's Playfully Eclectic Home
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Sheex Bedding
Eileen's Beachside Oasis Kitchen
How to Make Fresh Pasta Dough in the Food Processor
And most importantly: Only photograph the most compact and controlled of vignettes so that the full space is never revealed.
Works for a certain blog I read...
;)
Touche, Julian. My house is a wreck right now but I bet I could have an AT-worthy post in 30 seconds with your tip.
just make sure your books are in order by color....
Don't forget your Eames shell chair, "Keep Calm..." poster and adorable pet!
As every stylist knows - the single most important thing you can do to style up your pad is to throw in a bowl of green apples.
geesh...the sarcasm is dripping down my computer screen.
Jesus picture: NO
Buddha head: YES
And don't forget the interior-matching pet.
I'm laughing so loud I think I woke up my neighbour.
I also think "mid-century modern" and "ecclectic" should appear at some point during the description.
Also at least one those tall "column-of-books" shelves.
And NEVER any signs of life in the bedroom!
Clear your kitchen countertops of all appliances you use on a daily basis (everyone knows that ordinary coffee makers normally live in a cabinet). Set out an enormous Kitchen-Aid and/or the 1000$ espresso maker. If you the green apples don't fit your decor put some (1 cut and some uncut) lemons on a 2 inch cutting board, garnish with the giant meat knife.
Make sure the disprition mentions that your decor has been "collected from her/his/their travels [around the world]".
And CURATED in the description! Sorry to take the P*ss out of you on that one but this is all in good fun.
I don't understand what all of the sarcasm is about. If you don't like the aesthetic promoted on this site or the advice given, don't read it!
Also, why would you bother to return to a site about home decor if they posted pictures of offices with sloppy desks and bedrooms with rumpled sheets? Obviously "signs of life" are natural and appealing in your own home, but photos are supposed to show the ideal. That's what STAGING is all about.
Personally I come here to look at great photos of people's homes. I just think sometimes the staging becomes repetitive as with Keep Calm (which I own) and the bowl of green apples and it is fun to joke about it. I am absolutely guilty of staging my own home but God it looks like hell sometimes. I found myself using the word CURATED recently and had to laugh at my own pretentiousness. So lighten up - I kind of live here and love Apt Therapy. No ill intent from me.
If we can't laugh at ourselves now and then, where's the fun in life? Thanks for all the great comments above! You're killing me! I think of what my apartment looked like a few weeks ago when I got it pulled together and what it looked like this morning when I left for work (a disaster area) and this made me laugh! My co-workers think I've lost my mind at long last. Thank you all!
This post offers some useful advise - which I totally used while recently photographing my home for a far-away sibling (and I used the laundry basket to clear those last bits of "everyday living clutter" just before I photographed each room!) - and some great humor. Abby, I hope you're not taking these comments too seriously - I read most of them as eye-rolls. But you all have to admit that everytime a cute dog or cat appears in a pic, we ALL "ooh, he's soooo cute!" - so, of course, putting our cute pets in one of the pics is guaranteed at least a few good comments.
I've been away for a while, but like Kimberlina, I tend to spend a lot of time on this site; I think we start regarding the AT writers as 'family', so we don't hesitate to point out flaws and errors, just like we would to our sibs, and add in some teasing in the process. But that's only because we like you. Right, guys?
I love this site and frequent it daily on a regular basis. I come here to inspire myself with ideas for my home, and to come up with decorating solutions. I am sooo guilty of staging my home, but I love it! The kids' rooms are the only rooms allowed to be a mess regularly :)
hehehehehehe. Oh and don't forget to write something hip on your chalkboard wall before the shoot.
Why shouldn't folks gripe, whether meant to be taken with a grain of salt or not?! This isn't a monthly magazine, these are putting up lots of new content daily; if the bloggers aren't the best writers, the editors aren't the most attentive, then they should expect and be grateful for feedback.
If pretentiousness loses them eyes and clicks, I think they want to know, no?
So thank you, Julian, joliver, thorndale and, perhaps most of all, Kimberlina. (Notice how I curated the list of folks I thanked!)
love all the comments and they're proof we're all addicted to AP. we can laugh at ourselves, right?
All in good fun. Thanks for the laughs.
It's always worth a grin when I see the "Keep Calm" posters, though nowadays it's all about "We Are So Good Together" or "For Like Ever". Keep em coming!
Haha, I love all the comments. None are mean-spirited, except the people who are cranky about us poking fun at design memes that are fast becoming cliche.
Houses are lovely to arrange, paint, decorate, stage, and photograph, but everyone knows that a house is for living, and with living comes laughing!
If this blog, or its commenters, took the "DESIGN IS SERIOUS BUSINESS GUYS" tack all the time, I wouldn't want to spend my time here anymore. :(
That said, these are good tips. It's always good to know how to do a quick freshen-up on the pad before a VIP guest stops by. (Mother-in-law?!)
Don't forget to set your globes and your giant letters on the piece of wood furniture you painted turquoise so that people can fight about whether you should have painted it or not!
I don't know about you guys, but I ALWAYS keep a pair of never-worn shoes perfectly "casually" arranged at the foot of my arm chair.
I've also started moving about my house so quickly that I appear blurry. My pets have even gotten in on the act!
Laughter is the best (Apartment) Therapy!
Don't forget to put a pair of rubber boots on your doorstep. :)
And the pile of old suitcases or steamtrunks in the corner!
lupinelle, I painted a piece of furniture turquoise, loved it - everyone else in the house hated it - got passed back to my mum and my dad spent ages stripping it back to its original wood...
don't they get it? I must get them reading this site...
I still long for a turquoise cupboard.... ;(
You've all seen Catalog Living, right?
http://catalogliving.net/
engineergirl, you are my hero. I had no clue about this fabulous site. Thanks!
I needed a good laugh and inspiration to get rid of more clutter. Thankfully I got both here. I'd like to design my own poster that says "Please Panic in an Orderly Fashion"
BEST. A.T. COMMENTS. EVER.