My youngest daughter will be moving out of the house in the beginning of February and I will have the entire house to do with as I please. I have an inside unit townhouse with both the front and back yards fenced for daycare. The parents must come in the front door to enter daycare. The main floor has the living room, dining room, and kitchen and the top floor has three bedrooms and one bathroom.

If I rearrange everything, my thought is to use the basement as my bedroom/office and keep my pets (dog and 2 cats) in the basement during daycare hours. Then I could use the entire house for daycare, but I'm not sure what I would use each room for. Any suggestions?

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Here we have to be on same floor. Also, u less you have two approved exits you might get sticky on regulations. Here we must have an exterior stairway with a landing big enough to hold everyone outside door.

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There is no way I would be happy in the basement.Why not use first floor for D.C .Then second floor for you.Do you live alone? I would set up house with largest room for main playroom.Kid size tables and chairs shelves for toys and whatever closet for toys stored.The dining room could be the nap room.Kitchen for eating if big enough. Dining room could be the book corner with comfortable pillows and a chair for you. If you had after school kids you could set basement up for them.I have two dogs here and I keep them seperate with a gate.

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I wouldn't move to the basement either, I like to feel in the world. But you can make as much as you want of your main floor daycare. If you are happy with a "living room" or whatever upstairs then you can do that.

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I'm just so excited about the fact that after my daughter moves out, I have the entire house to myself to do anything I want in whichever room I want!

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if you used the rooms, how would you use the rooms? you can't be in one room and kids in the other, how would you provide supervision.

I would stay on the floor that you can do everything on, eat, toilet, play and nap. If you have to go up and down stairs, that could be a whole different issue with the kids and parents.

How would drop off and pick up go if the front door is down stairs and you guys are all up stairs?

I am not too sure exactly what basement looks like, I have never been in one. In CA where I live I have never been in a home that has one, guess they are not popular here.

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Not sure what you have to do as far as licensing. But things I would take into consideration and would like....

Same level entrance. I would love to have the entrance on the same level as the daycare.

Nap room. I would love to be able to keep pack n plays and cots set up and not dismantle them each day.

Craft room. Seriously. I would have easels set up. Table with different activities, etc. We could be in here and either have set activities or a bit freer choice.

During the colder months, I would love to have an open area set up for gross motor movements.

Would like to have it all, though, on one level. So if you could do dc on the main, personal on the lower, then that would be what works best for me.

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Im in a 3 level townhouse. My main level and basement level as well as outdoor areas are licensed for daycare. I also have a bedroom and bathroom in the basement. My upstairs (3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms ) is not licensed for daycare due to no exit to outside. I was told by licensing that in town homes they will not license the 2nd floor unless you have stairs that lead to outside, which is very unlikely here in MD. My main level is set up for daycare as a playroom and a classroom with a napping area and my basement is another play area and also has an approved napping area. I have assistants here during times that I utilize both levels at the same time.

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Yes, I have to stay with the kids unless they are sleeping. I was thinking of setting up the bedrooms with each room designated to a specific theme. Like one room be the classroom, one room be the arts and crafts room and the other room be an indoor large muscle room (have outdoor play structures like a slide, climbing structure, etc. so when it's raining or too cold to go outside, the kids can still play as if they were outside.)

My living room would remain the main daycare room with the toys and some educational items. The dining room could be the infants room. A while ago I set the dining room up as the infants' room and everyone liked it. Since the opening from the living room to the dining room is so large, it's almost as if they are one room. You can see everyone in each room no matter which room you are in. And the parents would continue dropping off and picking up by going through my front door into the living room like they already do.

Then in order for the children to use the items in each different room, we would do like school kids do when they go to art class or P.E. class. We, as a group, would go from the main floor up to the 'P.E. room' or to the 'art room' or to the 'classroom' for our circle time and curriculum learning time.

That's the general idea I had in mind. What do you think?

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Luvnmykids,

Maybe they changed the law. I used to have my upstairs rooms licensed for daycare. I chose to remove them because I changed the way I used the rooms. I also used to do overnight care years ago and of course my bedrooms upstairs were licensed for that. When I moved in this house about 3 years ago, they asked me if I wanted my upstairs rooms licensed or not and I chose not to. So maybe they've changed the law within the past couple of years. I will try to remember to call my specialist tomorrow and ask about whether I could get the upstairs bedrooms licensed or not.

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I would keep the daycare on the main floor, and use the upstairs for myself, making one bedroom into a living room. The basement--I'd have a gym. I think you are already doing that, right?

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You're so lucky to have all that space! I'd keep the upstairs for yourself and storage, rotation of toys, etc. Basement as a gym was an excellent idea! Along with your office, as long as you don't need to use it during daycare hours. And what you've thought about for the main floor, I think that's a cool idea. It'd be nice to have a separate arts and crafts room, maybe a quiet room where they can do puzzles, read stories. I guess it would depend on what kinds of toys, etc. you have. For instance, I could fill up a room with just all our block play. Definitely a separate napping room, one where they can't sneak toys to their cots. With some music set up, heavy curtains to cozy it up, and maybe illuminated stars on the ceiling.
Have fun redoing and redecorating PV.

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Yes, I already have an exercise gym in the basement for myself. It's in the laundry room in my basement. The front room of the basement is just an empty room. My older daughter used to use that room as her bedroom when she stayed here for college breaks and over the summers. So I could use it as my bedroom and office which would give the entire house to daycare.

I am always upstairs with the daycare kids anyway. I'd just go to my basement bedroom to sleep and to my office in the basement to do office work on occasion. I can bring my laptop and paperwork up to the main floor to work on if I wanted to.

I don't know. It's just an idea. Honestly, I'm not sure if I could get my desk up or down the steps onto another floor. It's awfully big and heavy. I'd have to get some guys to move it for me.

I have a month before my daughter moves out. I'm going to keep playing with ideas.

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Josiegirl,

Thanks. Yes, I am quite excited to have the entire house to do with as I please and to have all this space so I can rearrange things however I want.

I just spoke with my daycare specialist and he's going to have the fire marshal come over to let me know which rooms I can use. He also said that yes, they do still allow the upstairs bedrooms to be used for daycare.

I don't have money to buy new daycare things to put in different rooms. But I have plenty of things already that I can organize into different rooms. The only thing that I would need if I decide to create a classroom upstairs is another table and chairs. I only have the one table and chairs set that is being used in my daycare room that's currently in the living room.

Once the fire marshal comes and tells me which rooms I can use and what changes, if any, I have to make to get them to pass inspection, then I'll be able to decide what I really want to do with the rooms.

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How exciting! I would love -

An art room

A nap room

Maybe a 3+ room of board games and smaller manipulates.

Maybe an infant only room

Definitely a gross motor room if you live somewhere with weather! I would love an indoor gross motor space!

Have fun with this new arrangement! If you are licensed? There are lots of grants available if you are!

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Could you look on Craigslist for cheap table and chairs?

An old provider friend of mine used her whole house (one level)for daycare. One bedroom
Was a nap room. the other bedroom was a learning room (books, media play, table with chairs, arts stuff). The dining room was a place for infants (swings, bouncers, etc). The living room was set up with climbers and slides. It was beautiful!

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sahm1225, I like that you said your old friend's set up was beautiful. I think this is a really neat idea. I think parents would like that the kids have so much space and wouldn't have to be in just one room with the same scenery all day. Even though most daycare providers do only use their living room and that is fine. I've pretty much only used the living room for 25 years of doing daycare. But if I could expand and use different rooms for different concepts. I think it would be nice for the kids.

Controlled Choas, If I do this, I am definitely going to have an indoor gym/P.E. room/gross motor room whichever you want to call it. We get too many extremely cold, extremely hot, blizzard, and rainy days here. There are a good bit of days that we really can't go outside. So I definitely want an indoor P.E. room.

I also really think I would make the dining room the infant room. Infant stuff is so big... the playpens, swings, etc. take up so much space. If I could keep those things in the infant room it would give us so much more room in the main daycare room.

I can only go one floor away from the kids while they are sleeping, so I would still use the main daycare room as the napping room so I can go upstairs and into my basement during nap time.

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You're right, I could look on Craigslist and yard sales for a table.

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Yes, I am a licensed daycare provider. I am able to receive grants. I've heard of them, but have never applied for one. I'll look into them. Thanks for the idea.

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I was intimidated by the process at first and now I am addicted! I got 4 this year equally nearly $3000 worth of toys, furniture and art supplies! Grants is my answer to everything. You're hungry? There's a grant for that!

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DAAANNNGGG!!! $3000 of free stuff! I really have to look into grants!!!

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