New home stagers often say, “I can’t build my home staging portfolio because I don’t have clients yet!” That’s such a defeatist attitude. Instead, the question they should be asking themselves is, “How can I build a home staging portfolio right now to help me get clients?”
Asking “how can I?” puts you in the right mindset to find a solution (to almost any challenge).
I’m willing to bet any creative person with a digital camera (or even the camera on their cell phone) can put a home staging portfolio together this weekend.
All you need are three good sets of before-and-after pictures.
After all, you live somewhere. Plus, you know someone who lives somewhere. There are rooms waiting to be decorated or staged all around you!
Even if you already have a home staging portfolio, perhaps it’s ready for some “staging” of its own. So here’s the challenge: Look around your rooms and imagine, “What can I do here that will make a dramatic difference?”
Avoid this home staging portfolio hazard
The most common home staging portfolio pitfall I see is new home stagers fall into when they shoot before and after photos in their own home is not making the transformation dramatic enough.
The “after” shot might be fine, but home stagers (who naturally want everything to look nice) don’t make the “before” shot look bad enough!
You want a really bad “before” so your “after” photo will look that much better. Remember the whole point of a home staging portfolio is to help you sell the transformation you can achieve for your clients.
When you’re out doing home staging consultations for real people, you won’t have any trouble finding really bad “before” pictures. If you haven’t been to enough homes yet, you don’t realize how really bad it gets!
As a natural born home stager or decorator, your house (even at it’s worst) doesn’t look as bad as what you’ll find in the real world. So when you shoot before and after home staging photos in your own home, the transformation tends to be less dramatic than what you’ll be doing in the real world.
Fast Home Staging Portfolio – 7 Tips
1. Your own house probably looks pretty staged already.
I’m guessing that a lot of your house (with normal cleaning and tidying up) already looks like an after picture! Clean up, shoot your after shots, and then take things apart to do a before shot. In other words, you will be re-creating the typical problems you’ll be finding in your clients homes before doing a home staging consultation.
You don’t have to live in a million-dollar home to make it worthy of photographing for your home staging portfolio! Most of your potential clients will likely live in very average homes that aren’t expensively decorated. Remember your portfolio needs to cater to your potential clients so giving them photos they can relate to is a good thing!
2. Pay attention to the art, furniture placement and accessories.
Do not leave all the same art on the wall as in your before shot or you’re not going to show much of a transformation.
Don’t keep all of the furniture in the same spot for both photos. Many people live with their furniture in whatever spot the movers put it. So don’t assume the “wrong” furniture positioning wouldn’t actually happen in your home if you didn’t live there.
3. Master bedroom transformations are great for your home staging portfolio.
If you have lovely bedding, pillows, shams and all that jazz on the master bed right now, get rid of all of that and put something ugly or mismatched on the bed for your before shot.
I’ve actually staged homes where people are using a zipped-open sleeping bag as their bedding in the master bedroom. That’s what exists in the real world, so you could do that for your before. A bedroom is easy to stage within a few hours for your home staging portfolio.
4. Stay away from the kitchen unless you’re going to start repainting, changing cabinet knobs and bigger changes like that.
A kitchen is not as easy to home stage over the weekend. It’s not enough to show a cluttered kitchen with photos and drawings on the front of the fridge and a bunch of clutter on the counter, and then you take it all away for the after shot. That is not a good before-and-after story because all that tells potential home staging clients is that they should de-clutter their kitchen. They’ll say, “I can do that myself. I don’t need to hire a home stager.”
5. Bathrooms are often an easy home staging transformation.
My bathroom is always the very first room I redecorate when I move— a tradition I started with my very first apartment in my 20s because it was the cheapest and fastest thing I could decorate.
When I became a home stager I was shocked to discover how few people had nice shower curtains with matching towels. No wonder that stuff is always on sale!
For your before shot you could have just a shower liner hanging, mismatched towels, a lot of clutter on the counter and maybe an off-size mirror. These are things you can fix in a bathroom pretty easily.
You can also add artwork or fresh flowers for your after shot.
If you’ve been meaning to repaint your bathroom or powder room anyways, all the better! Plus, if you do have to change cabinet knobs there aren’t that many of them (compared to a kitchen redo).
6. Living rooms and dining rooms can be transformed quickly.
For your “before,” move the furniture around into a more problematic arrangement. You could put art on the walls that is the wrong size for where it is. These are common living room problems that you’ll see in houses once you get out there.
You could also have rugs that don’t match, or an area rug that’s too large or small for the room.
In a dining room, typical “before” problems include: an overstuffed china cabinet, a table facing the wrong way or with too many chairs around it, fussy drapes and an ill-proportioned chandelier at the wrong height.
Make sure your before and after photos go beyond simple de-cluttering. Your clients can do that themselves. They’ll want to hire you as a home stager when you demonstrate that you can make changes they wouldn’t have thought of themselves.
7. Don’t make your audience “work” to see what you’ve done. It has to be obvious.
Potential clients aren’t standing in the rooms to appreciate the degree of the transformation you achieved. You’ll need fairly dramatic changes in your before and after photos that they can see at a glance. Your home staging portfolio needs to showcase your abilities in an obvious way.
Texas Staging Diva Graduate, Sandee Foley discovered how bad a real “before” can be when she did a home staging consultation for a bachelor. Among other surprises, he was using paper towels rather than real ones in his bathroom. Presumably to cut back on laundry!
There’s a ton of ugly decor in the real world
I don’t believe creating these dramatic “before” scenarios are wrong or misleading. You are representing what you’ll find in your clients homes before you stage them and showing how you’d transform the space in your after photos.
When you get the FREE Staging Diva Home Staging Quiz, you’ll find 10 before pictures from 10 of my clients’ homes.
They’re perfect examples of the typical problems you’ll find during your home staging consultations. And, you’ll realize how easy the staging challenges are to solve when you have the eye of a home stager!
It’s not about how rich someone is.
I’ve staged very modest homes using only what a client already has. I’ve also staged homes over a million dollars that I’d never live in if I had to keep them exactly the way they were when I arrived.
What’s the Worst Thing You’ve Seen?
Did you build your home staging portfolio with photos from your own home like I did when I started my own home staging business? What’s the worst or most surprising thing you’ve seen in a client’s home? Please add your comments below and feel free to share the link to this article in social media so we can get more stagers’ input too!
Need More Home Staging Portfolio Tips?
I hope you found this article helpful and it inspired you to “get out of your own way” and create your home staging portfolio this weekend.
If you’d like more help, the Staging Diva Ultimate Portfolio Guide will teach you how to:
- Pick the best angle for better before and after photos
- Edit your photos to fix lighting or other flaws
- Get a great headshot of yourself even without hiring a photographer
- Write about your talents and your business in a compelling
- And more
Hi Debra, the worst place I saw was a woman who lived with 6 cats in a 1 bedroom condo. I went there on the realtor’s request to help her get started on her packing. There was cat food and cat vomit on the floor and everything else you can think of and the kitchen, I shake my head just thinking about the kitchen. I didn’t even go into the bathroom to wash my hands when I left I got to my car and used a cleaner I had there. I told the realtor about the vomit and he said it was there when he was there a week earlier and he apologized for not telling me to wear gloves.
Diana Zinck, The Stage Coach
Diana, Yes “crazy cat ladies” do exist 🙁
I suspect the agent didn’t want you to know what to expect or you might not have gone there at all. Sorry you had such an awful experience, I do appreciate you sharing it!
Great article, Debra. Very insightful too. This is what I do, and thought of myself as “misleading” potential clients. It’s a relief to know that not only to you encourage and recommend using our own homes as Home Staging examples, you put it to practice yourself.
Right now I have two rooms in my own home that need Staging. You’ve just inspired me to get back to work.
Thanks for another inspirational article! 🙂
Catherine Nicole Howland
Set the Scene! Home Staging
Thanks for commenting Catherine and I’m glad you found this helpful.
A home staging portfolio practice that I DO find misleading is sourcing/buying/stealing a portfolio of someone else’s decorating/staging work. Sadly some training programs offer fake portfolios which I believe misleads potential clients. I wrote about this practice in Home Stagers Using Fake Portfolios.
As long as the photos you use to demonstrate your talent is actual work that you have done, then I think it’s fair game. Whether you’ve decorated/staged your own house or someone elses, and whether you were actually paid for the staging/decorating or not.
Great article Debra! Just like most home stagers I started my staging business portfolio with just 4 before and after photos from my own home. Talent coupled with positive mental attitude can work wonders when starting a staging business. You just have to stop making excuses, and just do it!
Again, thanks for this inspiring article!
Red Barrinuevo
REDESIGN4MORE Home Staging & Home Redesign
Hey Red, thanks for stopping by and commenting. I started with photos from my own home too.
but what if you take your new portfolio of photos of YOUR own home, and a client asks “these are great, how long did it take this house to sell after you staged it?” you cannot expect us to lie to clients. at that point if we admit it is our own home, we look like a fraud and liar. what would you answer to that question if all the photos in your first portfolio for your first client were of your own home?!
Great question and no I don’t expect you to ever lie to a client. In the unlikely event that they ask how long a specific house took to sell (I’ve never been asked that in 11 years as a home stager), you would answer honestly. So for example, if they are looking at photos from your own home and ask how long did it take that house to sell, you can answer, “I’ve included this example in my portfolio as a representation of the kind of transformations I can accomplish for my clients. This particular house was not for sale.”
Some home stagers use photos of their own homes that were on the market so they can answer the question directly, however if that’s not the case, I think the above gives you an idea how you’d answer the question. Remember though, it is unlikely you’ll be faced with the question at all. But you’re right to think about it in advance so you have an honest reply that you are happy with.
I used photos of our personal homes to start my portfolio. I also used pictures of family and friends I decorated for as well. It is your creative talent you wish to show others. It is not important if it is your house or a clients home you show, What is important is the transformation of the space. Jackie C.
Absolutely Jackie, well said! Thanks for sharing your experiences!
My worst was also a cat lady…a realtor! She had had feral cats living in her lovely house, and they had sprayed everywhere. I tried to get her to paint the house, but she had painted BEFORE she got rid of the cats. We had to literally get on our hands and knees to clean baseboards and lower walls. By the time our work was finished, the contractors (she decided the house needed work AFTER we started) said that I had eliminated all of the smell. Not quite. I’d say that what was left was only about 10% of the original, but it was still strong enough to turn off buyers. The house never sold.
Wow Amy, that’s a great story, thanks so much for sharing it! I’ve had a few interesting experiences with realtor’s homes as well. It was shocking to see how they actually lived when they purported to make a great living selling homes to other people!
Thank you so much for this article! I recently got out my old digital camera on a whim and went through my home taking a variety of pictures to use as before photos. My house is nicely decorated, but my style is very casual country cottage and I use a lot of color and smaller decor items, so to many people it would look too cluttered and colorful. I also have a lot of family photos, personal memorabilia and collectibles on display. It also didn’t hurt that my house was messy that day, lol! The fact is, although my house is beautifully decorated and I get lots of compliments on my home, if I were putting it on the market, I would make a lot of changes. I do have plans to repaint and get new carpet in my master soon, so that will help with the after. Also, I have a very colorful patchwork style bedding and for the after photo I plan to switch to something more neutral. Also, after painting and carpet are done, I can just move in the furniture pieces and accessories first that I would use if staging it, take photos, and then add the more personal effects. I like the viewpoint that I read somewhere in your articles/courses that decorating to live is not the same as decorating to sell. We have things in our homes that are special to us as well as things that are functional for everyday use that we want to be convenient and accessible (but aren’t necessarily attractive) because we want to be comfortable living there, whereas decorating to sell is for the very different purpose of making it appeal to others and showcase the best features of the home. Now that the holidays are over, I hope to be able to get my after photos done soon!
Thanks for sharing your story Vicki and it looks like you’re making a great start on your home staging portfolio!
What you said about us keeping functional stuff around for daily life, that we might not want to have out for showings reminds me of a story.
One day I was doing a home staging consultation for a Chinese family that had a condo on the market for 6 months with no offers (despite it being a hot real estate market). At one point in the consultation, I actually found myself in their tiny condo kitchen where there was almost no counter space, explaining to the couple and the mother in law that they’d have to cook their rice in a pot and take the big rice cooker off the counter and put it in an out of the way cupboard or in off site storage. All the while thinking, “Who am I to tell two generations of Chinese women how to cook rice?!”
Hi Debra, when we purchase our home, was a vacant house. I have the before pictures with all empty rooms. For the after pictures, I still need an area rug for the living and formal dining rooms because the floors and the tables are dark wood, so I need the area rugs to make contrast between the floor and the tables. Unfortnatelly, I’m not ready to purchase the area rugs for now. This is holding me back, any suggestion are very welcome.
Hi Ithia,
Don’t let this stand in your way of getting your portfolio together, because the important thing is you start marketing your business and you need a portfolio to do that!
Take the pictures and see whether they don’t work without the rugs.
Keep in mind that when you’re home staging you have to live within certain constraints. You could just as easily have a client who doesn’t want to budget for rugs and you’ll have to stage without them.
Besides, I find often for staging, letting the beautiful floors show is better than covering them up (and having buyers worry there’s damage underneath). For additional help on getting the best before and after photos, writing about your business and more, I hope you’ll check out the Staging Diva Ultimate Portfolio Guide. It also happens to be on sale right now for my birthday promotion 🙂
I also wonder if putting a nice contrasting color tablecloth and/or tableware on the table will help to differentiate it from the floors. I’m generally of the opinion that if it’s a nice table then tableware isn’t needed, jut a centerpiece, etc.; but if it’s a plain or shabby table which needs to be used, then a cloth and settings might help. Thoughts?
Hi Allyn,
I generally don’t set the table or use a cloth. I agree if it’s truly shabby or ugly, covering it up with a table cloth may help. Even then I’d more likely just add a centerpiece rather than setting the whole thing. You might enjoy this article related to Setting the Table for Home Staging.
I’m wondering about a situation I have. The real estate broker is insisting I not have the rights to photos of the staging of the homes I do for him. When I pointed out it is typical for stagers to do this and vital for my own marketing, he said that while he sees it in contracts, he always has it struck out and won’t allow it, and that it’s not something that is done anymore. I disagree, but I am curious if you or others have had this issue and how you handle it. I’m just starting out, and I’m not comfortable with spending that amount of time and not being able to use it to promote my work, but maybe I am just wrong on this.
Hi Katie, You are the first home stager to contact me about this, and I correspond with hundreds of them every week.
I would ask him about is his rationale. Perhaps he doesn’t want before/after photos out there while the house is on the market. And I agree with him on this point. If that’s the concern, you could easily put in writing that you won’t use any of the photos until after the deal closes and the house is no longer on the market.
As for home stagers using photos of the home after staging “not being done anymore,” that’s completely false. All you have to do is look at my Instagram feed to see proof that this is not the case.
What can you do about this situation:
– If he doesn’t have a better reason than he doesn’t want you to use them (or it’s not done), find other real estate agents to work with. Perhaps he’s not the best fit. To be completely honest, he sounds like a bully.
– Take your own photos of your staging work and use those. My entire home staging portfolio is my own before and after photos. It hasn’t stopped me from staging millions of dollars of real estate and having my work featured on TV and in magazines and newpapers.
I think you’d enjoy this article, Home Stagers Realize Your Own Power in Real Estate
Here’s another one: 5 Real Estate Agent Warning Signs for Home Stagers
Katie, I’m really glad you posted your question/comment and I’d be curious to hear what other readers think. Or if they’ve had this same experience.
Thanks for commenting and wishing you every success as a home stager. Keep following your dream and don’t let the naysayers or bullies discourage you.