Does anyone NOT use their lounge?

Do you use all of your downstairs rooms for childminding? I know I have read in the past that some minders don't use their lounge for childminding, but I never really paid that idea much thought as I had no option other than to use my lounge in my last property.

Now that I have a playroom. I'm finding that I don't actually use my lounge - and I rather like it that way. Do Ofsted moan if we don't utilise all our available space? I know we don't do everything for Ofsted, but we do have them at the back of our minds generally.

I don't really use mine when I'm working.

I have a playroom and a big kitchen/ diner.
I use the dining room for sleeping children, although, if I've got a noisy one-i may move them into sitting room.

The children play the piano in sitting room, and we occasionally watch television after tea. The schoolies sometimes choose to go and play boardgames in peace when there is a houseful of small people!

I'm sure Ofsted will have no interest in your lounge. As long as you have the adequate meters per child, and you can talk about how you use the space etc, that is all they are interested in. Plenty of CMers use a garden building, converted garage etc and have all kinds of private/family spaces 'out of bounds'. Many, of course, don't have that luxury, so they use all the space they have!

I go by floor space. At the moment, with the number of children I have, I have enough floor space without using my lounge.

The only time I've really had to use it was when I had an assistant and we had 5 EYs children. The children don't particularly like it anyway because there are no toys in there now! We might go in for story time if I want to avoid the distractions in the playroom, or sometimes I might put a child in there to sleep.

Many years ago a friend of mine was marked down at her inspection for only using one room. The room wasn't very big and had a large table in it which took up a lot of the space. She also had a stairgate across the door so the children couldn't leave the room. She was pulled up on it because the room didn't have the correct floorspace for 3 children. Her front room had been taken into account when she'd been registered for 3 children, but because she didn't use it, the inspector took the space off her measurements. So it wasn't really the fact that she only used one room, rather that the one room she used wasn't big enough.

I think you'll be fine only using your playroom. It's nice to keep some of your house just for your family.

Thanks everyone. Some interesting points.

It's not that I mind the mindee being in the living room, it would just be one more room to clear up at the end of the day.

I only use my playroom/kitchen and garden now, I used to use the lounge before we converted the downstairs room to a playroom. When I had my inspection last year nothing was mentioned about the lounge. My family still have a childfree room they can use if they are home and I am working. Like others have said it's about the floor space you have. Since Covid we haven't used the kitchen very much either as I have tried to minimise the areas the children use and we now use the playroom table for meals.

I use all downstairs. Toys are in conservatory but they can take them into the living room. My kitchen/diner is between these rooms so we use all three. Plus if they are in the living room being noisy, I can still get a cuppa in peace in the kitchen when we get home from school run

"Officially" I do but I try not to really. And I'm going to start closing it off completely from now I think. Its hard showing parents round though and saying "oh we don't use this room" I always feel bad!!