Magazine worthy home

[DontFundHate]

What are your top tips for having a home which looks "finished" but without much effort?

Things I try to do -
We have lots of plants around, will probably get larger floor ones once DC are bigger
Diffusers
We try to keep kitchen worktops relatively clear

That's all I can think of! Be great to hear some easy tips. Thanks!

You've got to remember magazine photos are styled with lots of everyday items removed and vases of flowers in impractical places!

Magazine homes are often photo shopped.

But seriously, good functional storage so clutter is either stylishly displayed, tucked into arty baskets or hidden in cupboards.

Step one- have loads of money.
Step two- get a house which is bigger than you need and a stylist.
Step three- get a cleaner.

Does that help

Seriously- as little crap as possible, and somewhere nice to put it, good pictures on the walls and nice plants will all help. And really clean windows.

Ooh yes clean windows, that's a good shout. I hate cleaning!

I have friends whose house has featured in ‘Beautiful Homes’ magazines a few times. Their house really is beautiful. They are an architect and interior designer couple. When we’ve visited it really is as spotless at the magazine photos because everything has been placed there for deliberately and all their actual stuff is hidden away is well designed storage. I find it fascinating...books casually displayed on a shelf will be very purposefully selected high brow or quirky titles for people to look at, magazines strewn on a table are displayed for a reason, beautiful pots and pans hung up for display purposes but never used, only the best bottles of wine on view but are never drunk. All a bit weird to me but a beautiful ‘show home’.

Very interesting thank you!

A diffuser doesn't make your home magazine worthy or finished, that's about rhe smell not the aesthetics.

It's all about the soft/furnishings. You need to fill your home with beautiful things, in the right place. Not too much, not too little.

So quirky or interesting art pieces, beautiful sofas, soft furnishings that add interest, rugs, cushions, throws, gorgeous mirrors positioned to maximum interest, photos in lovely frames, Big plants or huge vases of flowers etc. Avoid clutter, and make sure what's in there is beautiful and goes together.

One friend had her house in a magazine, another her kitchen. Both said "never again" as it was too much upheaval. Most of their belongings seem to have been taken out & replaced with props (how can they advertise the curtains as costing X amount and being from Y store if it's actually the case that you went into John Lewis, flinched at the cost of material only to spot a leftover which happened to be the right length in an OK pattern & thought "that'll do"?). They also brought in a lot of lights so the lighting was just so.
The friend whose house was done told me afterwards she found it a bit disheartening to have a load of strangers going through her house, doing what they wanted with her things, swapping things, taking photos and then removing all of their bits leaving her with her original stuff which suddenly seemed a bit wanting and then her kids came home from school & there was mud & crap everywhere again! She, though, just did it because she could. She didn't have anything to advertise so didn't get any longer term gain from it. I don't know if it is more so recently or whether I have just noticed it recently but the person or, if in a couple, one of them seems to have a home related business they are effectively advertising.

OP, are you doing the house up for yourself or for the Joneses?

I absolutely adore my home, but I’m very much a minimalist. I have very very little stuff on display. Nothing on the kitchen counters, for example, apart from a fruit bowl and some herb pots.
I have some really nice original art on the walls.
I put a lot of thought into lighting the place. The walls, the furniture is a complete blank canvas on which I can add colour or texture.
My bedroom is white, green and grey. That’s it. No clothes to be seen anywhere, no bits of make up, nothing.

Is that magazine worth it? I frankly don’t particularly care, I like it.