I wrote last week about how distracting personal photos can be when it comes to selling your house.
Check out – Old School Thinking: Personal Photos DO NOT make your Home Feel More Like Home When Selling.
I’m in a lot of homes every week as I consult with sellers and I do see many beautiful and stylish photo displays on the wall. Wall Words are very popular right now as well as frames with meaningful sayings that celebrate the family displayed and what is important to them. I see gorgeous black and white photography of families, children and pets. And let’s not forget those baby shots that just melt your heart!
But when you are SELLING…as stunning as these pictures and wall displays are, they are DISTRACTING to your potential buyers.
So…now the BIG question….What do we do with these beautiful photo displays on the walls?
- Do we take them all down, patch the wall/re-paint and stare at a blank boring wall?
- Do we add a piece of artwork instead?
- What if we have A LOT of walls with photos?
Don’t despair! There is a STAGING TECHNIQUE that works quite well.
One of the easiest and inexpensive ways to NEUTRALIZE those family (and pet) photos is to replace the photos inside.
Here’s how in 3 Easy Steps:
- I tell my clients to either use vacation photos of landscape or head to a photo sharing site like Flickr and do a search for black and white landscaping/nature/trees/flowers. Whatever you prefer or will work for the room. And it can be in color too if that works best in that particular space.
- Once you find what you’re looking for, print it off in the appropriate size. This works best for 4×6, 5×7 and 8x 10. Any bigger than that, it gets a little more trickier.
- Put it over the existing photo in the frame and TA DAH!…..you have a nice, neutral photo to display.
Here’s examples of a past client’s home. The pictures to the right were of their children but temporary replaced with neutral black and white photos while their home was for sale.
Remember that there is also a balance that needs to be achieved throughout the house when it comes to all those personal photos. To achieve this, follow these guidelines:
- There may be some walls that everything will need to come down and you’ll patch and repaint. There may be a wall that will need a piece of artwork in place of the photos. The photo below is a perfect example. DO NOT attempt adding 11 pictures of TREES to this collage and calling it a keeper. A maximum of 3 photos per frame is recommended.
- If you have a display of photos with all different types of frames, they definitely need to come down. Please do not attempt to replace the photos with the staging technique above using all those different frames. It just won’t work.
- Be sure that all the frames in your display are the same. This creates a nice, clean simplistic presentation that does not distract from the selling features of the room. The example below is a good one. Now, don’t start thinking that the photos in those frames would be fine for selling either. Can you just see the buyer’s getting sucked into how sweet those babies are? Are they looking at your fabulous fireplace and large windows right now? A good replacement photo would be a landscape. You’ll see in the the far top left hand side of the photo looks to be a far off shot of a hillside and trees. If people ARE in it, and you can barely make them out, it’s fine to keep that one. Landscape of a beautiful hillside, mountain, river, etc. go well with the wording
Still unsure about creating that balance with your photos?
Consider hiring a Professional Stager to help you. Our Staging Consultation is very cost effective solution and we can assist you with creating that balance as well as an overall plan to get your house ready for the market. This takes all the second guessing and stress out of it as you prepare your home.
Happy Staging! google-site-verification: google44a69e5b4b110599.html
