Virtual home staging - how to furnish an empty apartment from a photo in one minute using Ray?

Publication date: 04-06-2026  |  Update date: 01-06-2026  | Author: Martyna Borkowska

Empty spaces and clients who find it hard to imagine the potential of an interior – these are the challenges architects face every day. Find out how to virtually furnish any room in just 60 seconds based on a simple photo. Discover the tool that will speed up your conceptual work and greatly ease communication with investors.

Presenting empty spaces – whether in a developer finish or on the secondary market – is a common challenge when working on a new assignment. Traditional methods for creating initial interior concepts require time to prepare 3D models and renderings, which at a very early conceptual stage is not always optimal. This is exactly where virtual homestaging comes in.

To streamline this process, we’ll show you how to furnish any room in just one minute using the Raya Design platform, based solely on a regular photo. Step by step, we’ll explain how this intuitive tool works, why it stands out among other AI generators, and how you can use it to speed up your design workflow and deliver a completely new level of presentation.

What is virtual homestaging and why is it revolutionizing the real estate market?

So what exactly is virtual homestaging? Put simply, it’s digitally furnishing and decorating spaces directly on the photos you already take during a standard inventory. Instead of spending thousands on physical furniture rentals, dealing with complex logistics, and losing an entire day to a traditional photo shoot, you can generate beautiful, ready-to-use shots in the app.

Image-based interior styling is now a true ace up the sleeve for every designer and agent, instantly boosting a property’s market value. Importantly, on the Raya platform this entire process is not only incredibly efficient but also extremely user-friendly and intuitive – lifting the burden of technical complexity off your shoulders while giving you full control over your final concept.

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Step 1: Quick decluttering – removing furniture from photos using AI

Before we start furnishing, we often need to deal with a challenging existing condition. What do you do when the space you want to showcase is cluttered or its current décor falls short of today’s market standards? The solution is very simple. You upload a standard photo of the untidy room with all its unnecessary items to the platform and immediately switch to edit mode.

In a traditional design process, you have to manually cut out and mask individual objects in graphic programs, which can take hours of work. In the Raya environment, this process is automated. Simply mark the area you want to remove and enter the command: “remove furniture and decor”. The AI algorithms analyze the surroundings and perform a digital decluttering, clearing the space of unwanted elements. Crucially, the system can accurately reconstruct the background hidden behind the furniture. The software extends floorboards or continues wall textures on its own. The result is a clean, empty room with correctly restored geometry, serving as the perfect base for further work.

Step 2: New layout from reference – furnishing the empty interior in one minute

With a cleaned-up photo base, we go to the “Homestaging” tab. We upload the photo of our empty room, which serves as the starting point for further work. The Raya platform provides a clear panel where we can add specific items and materials we want to use in the new design.

Instead of relying on chance and random algorithmic choices, we place our selected furniture elements into the empty frame. The tool allows us to describe in detail and specify exactly where each object should go. The AI precisely analyzes these instructions and the room’s perspective, then furnishes the interior within seconds. Our chosen items and textures are placed directly in the designated areas, creating a cohesive and photorealistic result. With this approach, we turn bare walls into a complete concept while maintaining full control over the final functional layout.

Details and animations that immediately sell the property

What if a single visualization isn’t enough to convince the investor? Based on the prepared layout, the software makes it easy to create several different side views, allowing us to show the property’s functional arrangement from various angles and facilitating a substantive discussion with the client before we even sit down for the final 3D modeling.

However, a true hit in today’s real estate market is the unique ability to bring the prepared space to life. The Raya app instantly generates short, engaging videos directly from the previously created static image. By leveraging depth mapping, integrated algorithms create a parallax effect, introducing smooth, cinematic camera movement in the virtually staged interior. This modern, immersive multimedia format is perfect for your social media stories or to enhance your sales listing.

Virtual homestaging has long been more than just an industry novelty – it’s a real tool available to all of us. Rather than take our word for it, the best way is to experience firsthand how AI can lighten the load during those first repetitive design stages. We highly encourage you to visit the platform at raya.design and try its features on your own project photos. You’ll discover that creating initial concepts with a client has never been faster, and your workflow will gain a completely new edge.