Staging For A Magazine Vs. Styling For Living

Have you ever wondered why your home looks so different from what you see in design magazines? Even if you hired a professional designer and your home is beautiful, the difference are these key factors done in a major way: scale, layering and drama. When staging a home for a photo shoot, we don't care if it's practical, but do ensure every angle has enough interest to be memorable and capture the reader. Behind the Scenes - Calculated Chaos It looks worse before it looks great. When we're styling in a way that will look stunning in a magazine or through a camera lens, we know it is mostly impractical for real life. Adding 4' branches in a vase on top of your kitchen island would never happen (okay, maybe in my house), but in a photo it is dramatic, which is exactly what you want for a magazine feature. In the family room, we layer in pillows with interesting pattern and sometimes colour to fill in empty corners and give a sense of luxurious abundance. Another stylist trick is mixing traditional pieces with contemporary accessories to add much-needed juxtaposition in a space. When It's All Said And Done When we're finished styling for a shoot, we are often asked to leave the pieces we brought for styling because clients love the fresh perspective and are items they wouldn't normally agree on us purchasing...until they see it in place. We adjust the locations to make it work for real life and give a sigh of relief that we don't have to slug it all back to our studio! We turned all the books around in the office library to simplify the look of the shelves. Obviously crazy for real life, but not for a styling. As great as these large planters look on the table, if you want to have a conversation with your kids across the table, it isn't going to work for every day. However, it's needed for the photoshoot so the harvest table doesn't look like a big void in the photo.

Are you dreaming up a project that needs our design expertise? We are now booking into late fall and winter. It's no secret we design homes, but did you know we also design vacation homes and places of business from the ground up or that require a levelling up and rebrand boost? Keep us in mind.