My Future Home Dreams With Local Heroes ♥

*This post is in collaboration with Local Heroes, however, as always, all thoughts and opinions expressed are 100% my own.

Having my own home is something which is always on the forefront of my mind. I have been renting since 2012 and I honestly can't wait for the day I'm able to call a house my own, decorate it as I wish and set down roots for my children.

Right now I'm saving everything I possibly can to make this dream come true but it is hard. Paying €1000 per month on rent and having to shell out for the necessities of daily life, bills and everything in between leaves me with very little left for saving and sometimes it seems impossible that I will ever have a home to call my own, but all of this never stops me dreaming.

I'm now at an age where I find myself having conversations with people about my 'dream kitchen', what interiors I love and what kind of house I'd like to live in. I find myself checking local properties sites, checking if there's anything even somewhat attainable for us and where we are at the moment with savings, but it's always almost, but not quite just yet.

Keeping a positive mindset I can see how having this extra time to save means that we will know what we want and don't want from a house when the time comes to buy. For example, after years of renting in the town we've decided that we want to live in the countryside. We've realised that we'd probably prefer an east to west facing house rather than a north to south aspect as we can't stand dark north-facing rooms and barely use them. We also know that we'll probably get a house for a much better deal in a couple of years than we would right now as property prices are out of control at the moment.

Local Heroes, who match skilled and vetted tradespeople to customers, have asked me to share my future home dreams and I was more than happy to do so as I love sharing interiors inspiration and dreaming about our future home. Local Heroes was set up by British Gas in 2016 with the aim of helping customers find trustworthy and tradespeople to do jobs in their homes hassle-free. If you're in the U.K. and are in need of the expertise of a tradesperson to make your home dreams come true then I recommend using the Local Heroes site to find someone suitable for the job.

On the Local Heroes site you can easily search for the type of tradesperson you need for the job - a plumber for example, and be matched with reliable and skilled people in your area.

If you're also a first time home buyer, Local Heroes also have a handy and useful guide which gives helpful information on plumbing, electrical, painting and plastering and a whole host of other trades that can be needed for new homes or if you want to upgrade your existing home.

As for my dream house... As I said above we've decided we'd like to live in the countryside and I think from my social media and blog photography it's clear to see that I have a deep love for the countryside. I grew up in the countryside and I can never get used to being in the town.

Ideally I'd love to buy my parents farmhouse - which is currently for sale. It's a 200 year old house and needs a lot doing to it, but I love it there and the boys absolutely love spending their time there too. It has two large gardens, is surrounded by fields, is quiet and has the woods just a minutes walk down the road. It couldn't be a more perfect place for bringing up a family.

It's also a four bedroom house and as I'd like another baby in the future, it's good to know that we'd have the space.

I always dream of the boys bedrooms and how I'd like to have them decorated. Bright and airy would be the definite vibe I'd be going for. I'd love to have a sea themed room for Tyler who's a water baby and a woodland themed room for Beau. I already have my eye on this stunning wallpaper and think it would be a gorgeous feature in his room. I've actually shared some woodland themed bedroom inspiration for his room on the blog before and I'm still in love with all those pieces.

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I think a playroom would be a must for us in our future home and if we were to buy my parents house there are two reception rooms, so making one into a playroom would be quite easy. I love the brightness of the playroom above and think the vintage style furniture and accessories is beautiful. Bright, vintage, shabby chic and floral would definitely be design elements I'd have to have in my future home interior.

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I'd like my future bathroom to have a bit more colour than the one pictured above but I'd have to have white decor too and the bathtub pictured above is amazing. I'd definitely want one like that to fit in with the vintage style decor, it's stunning!

The practicalities of installing a beautiful tub like that though would require a plumber and checking what pipes are in the house. Houses built before 1970 could have lead pipes - and as we want to buy and older house we would have to check for this and replace with copper or plastic pipes, especially if we're wanting to use the pipes for drinking water supply!

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The kitchen is the heart of our home and where we spend most of our time and I'd like to carry this on when we have our own house. A light, bright and white kitchen is what appeals to me most and I like the idea of having an old stove in a pastel colour and little pastel accents in the kitchen too.

Before buying any home we'll be doing thorough checks on the property. The Local Heroes guide covers everything from the little things such as checking the doors and windows of your prospective property for draughts, using the toilets to check their drainage and looking out for damp spots to the big things such as getting an electrical installation condition report and checking for cables that are fraying or not staying and replacing them.

Having a handy guide like this is really helpful to keep in mind when viewing properties and is definitely one to keep in mind when you find a house you love but want to be sure of it’s condition before entering into a sale. There’s points on the guide which I wouldn’t even have thought of before, such as checking where you would put your TV. If the living room is an odd shape there might not be room to accommodate a stand and if you want to hang a TV on the wall you have to be sure the wall can actually take the weight of it. It sounds really silly but I would have just automatically thought that a TV could be hung on any wall. It just goes to show that there’s a whole lot more to buying a house than simply falling in love with the property.

The Local Heroes guide really helps to make you think about the practicalities regarding every element of a prospective property and it even covers things such as checking the mobile phone signal - a must have for me with work and speaking to the neighbours - no one wants to live next door to people they can’t get on with, no matter how lovely the house is!

I hope one day soon I get to experience the joy of buying our first family home and doing it up and decorating it to our own personal tastes. I follow so many home inspiration accounts on Instagram and am constantly pinning new home decor ideas - there are so many beautiful decor ideas out there and I'd love to be able to create them in our own dream home.