Can you keep the family photos up or must they come down?

I’m in a lot of homes every week as I consult with buyers and 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 photography of families, children and pets. And let’s not forget those baby shots that just melt your heart!

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 just replace the photos inside.

Here’s how in 3 Easy Steps:

Take inventory of all the personal photos you need to cover; note orientation and frame sizes.

Seek out your vacation photos of landscape or visit a photo sharing site and do a search for black and white nature/trees/flowers/landscapes... or even architectural photos. Whatever you prefer or will work for the room and style of house. (It can be in color if that works best in that particular space.)
Once you find the ones your looking for, print them off in the appropriate size either at home if you have a photo printer or online to pick up at the local box store. This works best for 4×6, 5×7 and 8x 10. (Any bigger than that, it gets a little more difficult.)
Put it over the existing photo in the frame and TA DAH!…..you have a nice, neutral photo to display temporarily.

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 balance, follow these guidelines:

There may be some walls that everything will just 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.
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. 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 neutral photos suggested above using all those different frames. It just won’t work.

What about those collage frames that hold 4-10 pictures? Gone. Again, please do not attempt to replace the photos with the neutral photos suggested above using all those different frames. It just won’t work.

Yes, there can be people in your staging photos BUT they should be silhouettes or distance shots.

Are you feeling sentimental about taking down the photos of your loved ones? I promise you'll appreciate them more after they've been gone for just a bit.

So, are you going to swap out those pictures so people look at the house or are you going to keep your personal life on display?

Call me if you need help!