has anyone had their home featured in an interiors magazine

[queenofpuddings]

was just wondering how to maybe get my home photographed for an interiors magazine

has anyone had any experience or know someone who has

many thanks in advance

I write for some interiors magazines. I would say that you have to target your market quite carefully: to be crude, World of Interiors will want something that is virtually impossible to live in (a lot of the places it features are tellingly second homes) but amazing to look at but then there are magazines that have a specialist niche such as renovation where the story of how you achieved whatever you've achieved is more important. In the latter case, the house doesn't even have to be very beautiful - the story might be that you did it all for an incredibly low price.

HTH

thanks lala, woi bit out of my league was thinking more of country homes and interiors

Someone on Mumsnet has some very very funny stories to tell from a close relative who does the styling for one of the interiors magazines. I read the magazine with her stories in mind, and they're hysterically accurate. Apparently the stylist breezes in, takes out a lot of your possessions, puts in a lot of their own possessions, hides you behind the kitchen table for the photos if they think you're fat, and gets you to be photographed with a random dog. If you look, you can sometimes spot the same possessions (and even dog!) in multiple houses in the same issue. You can also see who was deemed attractive enough to be photographed standing up, and who was hidden behind a large piece of furniture.

I love World of Interiors as you couldn't even attempt to make your house look like their pics and probably wouldn't want to - particularly liked the Russian peasant's hut and Goethe's house.

p.s. obviously Lala never hides anyone behind a table!

Ha ha - feel very insulted if they run a photo of you standing by your front door with lots of lawn in front . I have been there when tables, chairs and especially bed linen have been hidden. That's where a lot of houses fall down (and tend to get weeded out before the magazine invests in photography) - the architect/interior designer is great but the furniture has been brought in from the previous home and just doesn't go. It is a particular problem with old people.

my childhood home was REGULARLY in magazines (several times a year for several years) - I hated it.
We were not allowed any posters, our rooms had to be able to be decluttered at short notice
they always brought their own ornaments and tat
and their lights got in the way of us doing our homework
and heaven forfend any of us being in the pictures

We need to see photos of your home before we can possibly comment

I am just curious: any particular reason you want your home in a magazine?? I would hate for the world to see how we live. And I love our house and think it's gorgeous .
Our house is on our architect's website - does that count?

I've the same question as PacificDogwood. Is it because you get paid? Or an attempt to have 'something extra' to put on a Rightmove listing if planning to sell?

What was your parents' reason TalkinPeace2?

Some of my homes have featured in Right Move ... er... magazine.

We did it as a favour for a friend who wanted to plug her soft furnishings label, also for a flooring company too.

We didn't feature obviously. (Would rather die.) But it was nice seeing the house looking uncluttered!!

I think the poster with tales to tell on this subject is LaQueen.

Sadly but I do love an interiors mag!

*sadly not

RCheshire
The house had won an RIBA gold medal - not parents' direct choice - groups of architecture students turning up at random and expecting a tour was another pita ....

I buy House Beautiful magazine and it seems as though pretty much all the owners of the houses featured are either interior designers, architects or run their own interiors shop. I wonder whether they actually pay to be featured given the articles are pretty good marketing for their businesses - there's certainly nothing in the magazine which suggests you can apply for your own home to be featured

I get Elle Decoration sometimes. Not very often.

Like the desk and lawn ones. What are the other tricks?

mycat: I don't think that people do pay to be in the magazines, well not the ones I have ever worked for. But like you say, it is a really good marketing device so the people who appear in them are often quite motivated by having something to push themselves and, generally, architects and interior designers will have attractive houses. There often is a line somewhere (letters page/ underneath editor's guff at the front) that invites submissions but the staff will be very picky about what gets sent in.

Other tricks are: standing outside a particular window in a house shining huge great lights in to make the interior look sunny; getting the owners to cook something (then you can kind of get away with having them in their fabulous kitchen but they could almost have their backs to the camera); details shots where you take every nice thing in the house and arrange it artfully on one shelf and then photograph that as if it were the usual display; bit of a cliche but large expanse of floor with one (usually wooden) child's toy in the middle to show how "relaxed" the family is.

Hehe, loving these insider tricks.

About older people's furniture - it reminds me of a Grand Designs episode that had an artistic woman in her late 60s-70s masterminding an amazing house in Spain with the whole of one side formed by a massive concrete curve. Looked fantastic, like the entrance to a Bond villain lair. And then Kev went round to do the end-of-show bit and this arty, clued-up, modernist woman had filled the house with pink carpets and that twiddly cherrywood 1980s furniture with fake embroidered upholstery. Was very strange.

TalkinPiece - there's a MNer who has a similar situation, and as you say, there are endless architects appearing expecting to come in and have a tour, or going round the back and taking photos. A couple of architects actually sneaked in when the door was on the latch and were found wandering round the building.

We had them interrupting family meals ....

and BTW we never paid or got paid - not even sure the architects did!

My house was featured in an interiors/house magazine last Christmas and I was approached by the stylist due to my line of work.

Preparing the house for a Christmas shoot in the middle of August was interesting, especially when a huge real tree was delivered by courier - I'm not quite sure what the neighbours thought!
Very little was changed in my house with regard to moving things about although they did use a couple of shots of me grinning inanely into the camera (which I wish they'd have binned )

What are the concrete steps to get your house featured...do you contact a magazine with photos or write an article and try to shop it around?

I just got the Elle country homes feature, and love looking through it.

My wedding was in a wedding magazine, does that count?

They made us sound like twats. Served me right

Yes a number of years ago we no longer live there.