home’s interior, with all its trappings.
Hardwood floors glisten. Kitchens, with marble countertops, are invariably white. Light floods the rooms
from every angle. A throw blanket is tossed on a bed, with a plush duvet and a half dozen pillows. Other
focal points might include a selection of shoes or camisoles casually displayed on a tufted fabric bench,
almost begging to be bought.
Attract enough followers eager to see shots of a dining room centrepiece with fresh-cut summer flowers,
and brands like Nordstrom, Pottery Barn, Wayfair and the Container Store will pay for access, offering the
potential of a six-figure salary and plenty of free merchandise. Those who run successful accounts generally
describe their rise as accidental, born from a mix of luck (a nod from the Better Homes & Gardens
Instagram account with its 1.8 million followers helps) and a passion for their homes. Some had successful
blogs with loyal readerships that followed them to social media.
I don’t want to entertain because it’s my
workspace, says Erin Vogelpohl
(mytexashouse/Instagram)But there is a price to pay for internet fame derived from your home. The space where you raise your
children, kick off your shoes and go to bed lives online, more as a professional showroom than as private
living quarters. Consider buying a new sofa or accent chair, and you may pause to wonder how well the
piece will photograph. Spill a protein shake on the kitchen runner, and the aftermath becomes an Instagram
stories tutorial on how to extricate chocolate from a rug.
“The house does feel a little less like my own because so many people know it. So many people have seen
inside every space,” says Vogelpohl, 41, who lives there with her husband and three children. “I don’t want
to entertain because it’s my workspace – literally, the whole thing.”
It takes work to keep a house looking both novel and spotless. How many pictures of the same family room
can you post before a follower moves on to something new?
Before Leslie Saeta turned her six-bedroom house in South Pasadena, California, into an Instagram
destination, she had two boxes of Christmas decorations. Now she has 17. And how could she not? The
239,000 followers of @my100yearoldhome expect to see her bannister wrapped in garlands and wreaths
hung from every window by early December.
To keep the 104,000 followers of @ninawilliamsblog intrigued, Nina Williams, 36, frequently changed the
decor of the six-bedroom house in West Des Moines, Iowa, where she and her family lived until they sold it
in May. Now she is enjoying a temporary reprieve, as the family lives in a rental nearby, while they build a
7,000-square-foot house on 40 acres. As that project is the current focus of her Instagram account, she can
enjoy a few months of living outside the internet fishbowl, and indulge in decorating sins like covering the
refrigerator with magnets and her children’s drawings.