Staging Area For Perfect Photos

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One of the things I get asked most about is my staging wall! If you’ve followed my Facebook page a caught a live tutorial you may have noticed that my staging area is not in my house, or in some separate area of my shop. It is stuck right up against my garage wall close to the door!

So today I’m going to tell you just how to create an easy to use staging wall in your own space. At the end of the day we have to find what works for us with what we have. I hope you find a few good tips to help you!

When I started painting furniture I knew that it was absolutely necessary to take incredible photos. So I tried to find a place in my home with good lighting, nice wall space, and a spot without outlets….I found that this was quite a challenge! So I ordered a photo back drop from amazon…As you can see here it just didn’t look quite as real and good as I wanted it to.

We learn from trial and error. I returned this back drop and headed to my local Menards. Menards is the lower cost option to Home Depot and Lowes in the Midwest. I went to the wall panel section and bought 2 matching pieces of panel board. I bought light gray. These 2 are for the “wall” of my photo area.  I then got a “floor” piece with brown wood grain. To finish off my wall area I got a piece of trim! Here’s a picture of the wall panels so you know exactly what I’m referring to.

So I enlisted the help of my husband to hang the panels. They are large and awkward so I recommend you get some help! We nailed the boards to the wall and tried to hide the seam where the 2 boards met as much as possible. l put the 3rd contrasting board right on the garage floor and set the trim up against the all and wallah!! We created the perfect staging area!! You can see from this picture that the light isn’t complimentary. I’ve learned that the best time to take photos is before 1:00 as I have a west-facing garage. You’ll learn what time of day is the best for lighting in your space.

So over time and a lot of use the gray wall needed a fresh look. I had spilled paint on it and had more holes hammered into it than I can comfortably count. After a year I decided I would either need to replace the panels or paint them. Well, of course I decided to paint them!!

These panels have the best wood texture. So we went ahead and painted them. I used a black paint from Dixie Belle called Caviar. I would recommend you use some kind of a chalk paint to create a matte look. After it was painted and dry I rubbed over it with the edge of my daughters sidewalk chalk! This created the beautiful white wood texture you see in my photos. It was so easy! It was likely a total of 30 minutes of work time including painting and rubbing the chalk on it. The one thing I didn’t do is seal it! I just left it as is! It has held up so far and this way I can rub some of the chalk off if I want to lessen the look of the wood or add more if it rubs off.

There you go an easy way to create a staging wall for stunning photos!!