Shaping Spaces, Shaping Stories: A Q&A with Natalie Evans – It was a pleasure to sit down with Natalie Evans, the inspiring founder of Little Barn Door, to explore her unique approach to home staging, the emotions behind buyer psychology, and why Pantone’s 2026 Colour of the Year, Cloud Dancer, is set to shape the way we think about our homes in the year ahead.
Little Barn Door is built on the idea that every home tells a story – when you step into a property for the first time, what’s the first thing you instinctively notice?
When viewers enter a property, they are filled with mixed emotions, anxiety, anticipation and excitement. The initial space in a property, usually the hallway, has the power to make or break a viewing experience. Whilst it is often overlooked, a calm and orderly hallway is key. Paint colour, wall art and general organisation have a huge impact on the viewer’s feelings when entering. When staged correctly viewers should feel at ease on their arrival gently signposted to the next room with eager anticipation of what is to come. At Little Barn Door we use hallways to control and guide a viewing. By leaving just one door open in the hallway you give your viewer a glimpse of what is to come, building anticipation and curiosity, and then directly navigate them to the next part of the experience, it’s sequential and purposeful. When an entrance hallway is poorly presented, disorganised and closed in, a viewer can immediately feel unwelcome and cold, leaving them feeling distant, often making their decision before even starting. It’s very cliched but first impressions matter and your hallway is the driver for the rest of your viewing experience
You often say buyers don’t buy bricks and mortar; they buy the feeling of a home – how do you consciously create that feeling through your staging work?
Getting to understand the target buyer is a key part of our staging process. Like with any marketing tool, staging for the right home buyer is essential and at Little Barn Door we have specialists who handle the profiling of home buyers to make sure that we get every detail of an installation correct. By understanding who is likely to buy the home, we can ensure that every item in the home is curated and installed to speak to them, from the fragrance to the books, each detail is designed to reassure a buyer that it is a safe purchase for them and the right purchase for them with just the right amount of inspiration to build excitement. The focus is always on the buyer, their experience and their feelings. By getting this right we can use our staging services to get the very results for our home seller clients.
Pantone’s Colour of the Year for 2026, Cloud Dancer, is a soft, calming shade — why do you think this colour reflects how we want our homes to feel right now?
Our home decor choices often reflect areas that we are lacking in our day-to-day environment. One great example of this is the need for increased texture in our home in contrast to the smooth screened smart phones that we swipe every day. Post covid we were wanting to feel safe, settled and grounded in our homes, our earthy interiors and natural textures are a big response to this really bringing a chocolatey comfort into our homes, but with the New Year on the horizon, are we starting to want to embrace more optimism and light in our lives?
The dreamily named Cloud Dancer comes as the New Year approaches and we are considering the blank canvas that is 2026. As many come through Christmas, they will be considering plans, resolutions, aspirations and visions – possibly some that have seemed impossible over the past 5 years, but Cloud Dancer is that nod to wanting more space to create the life we want. And that starts at home.
How can homeowners introduce Cloud Dancer into their interiors in a way that feels timeless and buyer-friendly?
Cloud Dancer is a soft white which will not only offer a calming and light backdrop for any room but can be weaved as furnishings and accessories through any existing decor scheme through to uplift and highlight. As with any trend there is a big investment in to completely changing the look, and this is near on impossible if we react to every trend. But that isn’t what Cloud Dancer is calling us to do, it is calling us to build a gentle relationship back with light and hope. We are being encouraged to add the fresh shade back into our homes, bit by bit. Whilst for some a repainting of rooms may feel like the right step, Cloud Dancer will be as impactful a step by introducing subtle glimpses through our soft furnishings and accessories. Cloud Dancer feels like a life changing colour, a slow burner that can in time lift spirits and reshape our creativity at home.
Do you believe colour trends like Cloud Dancer genuinely influence buyer psychology, or are they more about shaping emotion and atmosphere?
Colour has an incredible impact on consumer psychology, from shaping first impressions to influencing purchasing decisions. Using the right colour palette within a staged property will help sign post a buyer to connect emotionally with a home and influence their position on making an offer. With so much complexity in the home buying process, keeping the canvas of a home simple with a white shade such as Cloud Dancer creates a sensation of simplicity in their decision-making process. In the same way that tech or healthcare companies favour white in their marketing, using a white neutral in your home invokes simplicity, authenticity and purity to make the decision process easier.
With property searches now starting online, what makes an interior truly “scroll-stopping” in today’s digital-first market?
There is no quick fix paint colour or accessory to guarantee stopping the scroll, but one thing is clear as to why professionally staged homes stand out on the market. If when looking for a new property either online or in person, the viewer sees either something that they are familiar with, love or aspire to have, they will stop and view. Familiarity bias is a key driver in buying behaviour, building an instant connection between the viewer and the listing. Their curiosity will encourage them to explore the property through the listing and physical viewing, and onward staging keep them dreaming whilst in the property. By getting this right from listing, you are likely to half your time on the market on having a more enjoyable overall experience.
You work with busy families, first-time sellers and character homes – how do you keep the staging process feeling achievable rather than overwhelming?
Since launching Little Barn Door, I have had the pleasure of working with thousands of home sellers from all walks of life. Despite having different selling circumstances, one thing remains the same for all, they find the idea of selling their homes overwhelming. Our biggest commitment to clients is to keep our services simple and seamless. Whether clients are working with us to get a diagnosis on their home sale and action plan to overcome selling blocks, or fully installing their vacant home our communication is clear and most importantly supportive. We see our service as being part of the selling process rather than an additional service, so handle all agent communications and marketing support as well and the physical installation. This way all of our clients know that they have the dream team on their side.
What kind of emotional response does a tone like Cloud Dancer create in a space, and why is that so powerful when it comes to selling homes?
Cloud Dancer has been announced at a time where, especially in the UK, we are looking for reassurance, calm and reassurance. For home sellers and prospective buyers the UK market has created many challenges over the past 12 months, so taking the decision to buy or sell a home is a big task. Over the past few years, we have really challenged historical staging “minimalism” by bringing more colour into designs, but this new direction draws us back to simplicity. Cloud Dance is a colour that boosts the appearance of light, creates the feeling of positivity and allows prospective buyers to visualise crafting their own story on a blank canvas.
As President of the Home Staging Association UK, what key shifts do you see happening in the staging industry over the next few years?
Home Staging has always been perceived as a design tool, a tool to make homes look attractive before going on the market for sale. However, the reality is that when used professionally it is a marketing tool giving much more power that it is given the credit for. We are seeing many more stagers coming into the industry with this insight, transforming how the whole property market is using presentation to drive the market. To be good at the job, you need more than a passion for design, but expertise in human behaviour. Before starting Little Barn Door, my career was in HR. Working as an HR Director to shape employee behaviour and engagement within the workplace. Whilst these don’t on the surface hold relevance in property, these skills have given me a greater insight to deliver home staging results, than the technical design skills. My knowledge of people and the drive of people allow our stager services to really put the buyer first. It is an exciting time for the industry, and I am excited to continue seeing it find its place in the wider property industry.
Finally, what does “home” mean to you now, both personally and professionally?
When staging a home to go on the market for sale, the “home” created gives space for the new viewer to visualise their future in the space. It has nods to their present life but gives them a platform to play with the image of the person that they desire to become when they live in the home. Where they will work. Who they will be professionally and to others. Home is a symbol of their life. Staging your home for sale is very different to how you live in your home. In fact, for me “home” is a space away from the person I am in my professional world. It is a space where my mobile phone can go away, I can bake with the children and be myself without the professional mask. There is nothing better than a Sunday afternoon, with scrunched up blankets all over the sofa and cushions out of place. A lived in “home” is about what you need it to be at each stage of life, for me today, that is peace, calm and warmth.
After speaking with Natalie, it’s clear that her work goes far beyond styling rooms — she helps people rediscover calm, possibility and a sense of belonging. And as we step into 2026 with the gentle optimism of Cloud Dancer, her message feels more relevant than ever: a beautifully staged home isn’t just seen, it’s felt.
Poppy Watt