Virtual staging furniture (Best websites you can use now)
Virtual Staging Furniture is the second ingredient of a good virtual staging project. The first one being a professional workflow having the right staging models (furniture, decors, plants, fabrics, light fixtures, and others) can be the key and final details;
By George Nicola (Expert Stager)
Table of Contents
Managing a virtual staging company like TALLBOX, my daily tasks are to supply our virtual stagers with quality 3D models and textures.
Recently I’ve opened to the world by sharing my virtual staging workflow in the form of free tutorials; what I show on these videos is exactly what we do here at TALLBOX.
One day I was asked by our clients:
Virtual staging client:
– Can I see your 3D furniture library and pick something?
I replied:
– We don’t have one, but instead, we use mood boards made specifically for each project. Surely we use virtual staging furniture models that we either buy (from this website below) or model ourselves.
– Also, you can check out our guide on design styles for virtual staging that each client chooses for the project specifically; check it here: Virtual Staging Design Styles
These conversations are daily, and that made me write this article. First, I’ll share most 3D models’ websites and resources to get hands-on good and quality 3D models that can be used as virtual staging furniture (for free and paid resources) and how you can organize and use them most efficiently in your projects.
There are many websites for 3D models, but none are suitable for virtual staging projects; hence, I decided to make this article and shed some light on that subject.
I intend to update the information up-to-date every 3 months, so make sure you check regularly.
Have a project to virtually stage? We know how to do it effectively >
Where to find quality virtual staging furniture models?
Free / Paid virtual staging furniture
Zeel Project
Zeel project is not a strictly dedicated website for virtual staging furniture, but its vast and constantly updating the database is one of the best places I’ve found online.
Apart from being FREE (not anymore).At the time of writing the article, Zeel was Free, but that has changed for a subscription model.
The only up-to-date limitation seems to be that you can download up to 20 3 models per day, and the speed is very limited.
For example, a virtual staging furniture set of sofa, table, and some decors (90MB in total) can be downloaded for approximately 10-15mins depending on your internet too.
Negative: You can select models organized by categories, brands, artists, and even a texture section, but if you are used to searching based on a brand name, model name, or something more specific, their search system is a bit messed up and you will end with a mixed result page.
If you’re asking how they managed to support themselves and all creators, sharing 3D furniture models for free at the beginning of the operation, here’s the answer.
Designers and companies can join the website and do their part of the game.
Companies pay a yearly fee to participate in their marketing project and 3D modelers.
They use the information provided by the Furniture brands and Designer to create the 3D models and upload them to the website.
In my opinion, this is fair play and the best option for our virtual staging community.
All models are suitable for virtual staging under the Royalty Free License and 3D Model License.
I like that website so much that I even made a video on it:
3Dsky
3Dsky is both a Free and Paid database for 3D models. It’s not strictly organized for virtual staging furniture, but it’s a well-known place and tends to be the largest 3D furniture library on the internet, giving you free models.
The website gives you 3 free models per day and the option to purchase PRO models for $7 per model; For to buy a 3D model, you have to top-up your account with at least two 3D model credits at a time.
If you have 3D modeling skills, you can model and submit virtual staging furniture models and earn money.
Join and upload 3D models to be approved by the 3Dsky team if they are eligible for PRO or Free ratings.
3DSky is a reliable source for models; daily, thousands of 3D models are being uploaded to the website, and it probably has more than 100,000 visitors looking for quality models.
The quality of the Free models varies, and some of them might be very outdated from the times where a low poly was considered a perfect option, as PCs weren’t able to handle many polygons or large texture sizes.
3DWarehouse
Not fully dedicated to virtual staging furniture, but it’s considered the largest website for Free SketchUp models with more than 35 million SketchUp active users (information taken from 3D basecamp 2016) and probably around 60 million users up-to-date (unofficial data).
That is 1% of the people on our planet who have a computer used SketchUp. 3D model uploads are not supervised or approved, which means that being free, the quality of the models varies.
Perhaps this place is so popular and does not need further introduction.
Being a SketchUp model means that if you do your virtual staging projects in a different software from SketchUp, you have to do a bit of work to correctly convert and set up all materials.
So perhaps with some models, a bit of modeling work is needed too.
To find the suitable models you are looking for, you have to spend some time digging in the search bar and typing different keywords; eventually, you’ll find what you are looking for in your staging project.
CGTrader
CgTrader is another rival competitor of 3Dsky.
It’s not strictly dedicated to virtual staging furniture only, but a vast database of 1.220.000 3D models can back you up (recorded at the time of writing this article).
Every uploaded 3D model it’s checked by a professional team and approved for a Free or Pro rating.
It has a FREE section with models. Regularly, they have discounts and promo codes, so you can definitely get some bargains if you pay attention.
Not all PRO models available for purchase are suitable for virtual staging.
Many of the assets are for game engines, architecture, or other types of product visualizations, but with some clever searching with their highly advanced search engine, you might find what you are looking for.
They are a CGTrader Loyalty Discounts which gives you additional savings of up to 30%, and you can learn more about that program here: click
At TALLBOX we use CGtrader mainly for virtual staging projects where some exteriors are included, as they have very good plant models -> 3D plants and planters
Design Connected
DC (short from DesignConnected) is the Best 3D model for interior design and visualization.
Not strictly dedicated, but in practice, interior design projects require furniture that can be used in virtual staging projects; hence, almost 99% of all models on their database are suitable for stagings.
They have a free section on their website called FREEBIES which has perfect quality models.
The good thing is that you can re-use them and combine them with the free models from other places or ones you model and form sets and groups of models that you can re-use in the staging projects.
They claim that their database of 3D models is the best one, and perhaps that’s not a lie since they do models, specifically furniture and light fixture brands.
Models are high-quality with good textures and optimized.
If I have to rank their prices and compare it with the rest out there, they might be on the expensive side, but if you are into the luxury sector, it’s worth treating your staging projects with some quality models.
There are two ways you can purchase models with them:
- on-demand – you pay per model
- with a subscription plan – there’s a monthly charge of min. 19 euro up to 99 euro where you’ll be able to download some PRO models for free and the rest can buy at a highly discounted price.
Learn more about their prices and subscriptions here
Something else they have for free and worth mentioning is their Connector app:
Link to Connector
Free and visual creative assets management for 3d, AEC and design professionals.
I’ve also made a short video on how to use connector to add virtual furniture to your stagings.
Hum3D Furniture
The well-known car 3D models creation team Hum3D has been actively developing its furniture collection in recent years.
The site also has a selection of free 3D models, among which are quality furniture pieces. Just recently, it became possible to get a monthly subscription to the furniture collection, which allows you to purchase models at a discounted price.
Since company employees develop all models, you can always ask for product modification or
adaptation for specific software.
The site also allows you to make a custom order, in which you can specify any unique options you need.
This is what basically sets Hum3D apart from popular 3D model marketplaces.
FAQ section
Are virtual staging furniture models real?
85% of the furniture used in virtual staging is real furniture; the only problem with your virtual stager giving you their real name is that they might not have it;
That’s caused by how they organize their libraries. It’s worth checking with them if you wish to buy these models in real life to furnish your house
Are virtual staging models expensive?
The average price per single 3d model starts at $5 to $15 but goes up to $250 – $500 if it’s an on-demand model made for your specific project.
How do you do virtual staging furniture?
Start by selecting a model from real life; Get the blueprints with dimensions.
You need good modeling skills to model the furniture and then textures to cover it and make it look good.
In 70% of virtual staging projects, time is not enough for modeling furniture specifically for projects, so it makes perfect sense to purchase already available models when required.
Who does buy the 3D staging models?
Typically 3D staging models are purchased already by the virtual staging company.
Still, if the clients have some particular needs, they can provide their own furniture references to be used and modeled for the project.
How many 3D models are needed to form a staging project?
On average, and depending on the scale of the spaces and their style, 10 to 15 3d models are used in virtual staging projects.
