Business Spotlight: Working From Home

Every day, Traudi Thomason's day starts at 6 a.m. She typically makes breakfast at 8 a.m., goes around the house cleaning and changes linens — for strangers.

Traudi and her husband, Bob, are Wayne's only Bed and Breakfast owners. Wayne Bed and Breakfast Inn opened for business on Mother's Day of 2012, after a three-year zoning legal battle.

And Traudi said it's like a dream.

“The children had gone to college and we were thinking about what do we do with this lovely, old beautiful, building,” she said, adding that the home is over 100 years old. “I was thinking of re-purposing and this idea of a bed and breakfast just came into my mind."

The Thomason famliy — which also includes the couple's two daughters who are away at college — has lived in the house 10 years prior to it becoming a bed and breakfast. Traudi already had five bedrooms with private bathrooms in a section of the house separate from her family's — so structurally, she and Bob didn't have to do anything.

"It seemed like a perfect thing,” she added.

After only eight months of being open, Traudi said she already has seen repeat business and is enthralled with the experience she's had.

Among the highlights — a WWF female wrestler and a Canadian artist turned paleontologist after being asked to reconstruct missing dinosaur bones early in his career.

Traudi said that she guages how much guests like to talk, but many of them end up sitting with her chatting by her livingroom fire.

"It’s like having friends come over to stay," she said. "It’s been really fun because you know someone’s coming, you know their name, but you don’t know what their story is."

Traudi and Bob said they also like to promote local businesses to guests, as proud Wayne residents. For their Valentine's Day promotion, they've offered guests passes to Longwood Gardens.

While Traudi said it's never been her dream to open a bed and breakfast, she thinks it's turned out nicely.

"So many people dream of working from home and I get to do it," she said. "I love being out in the gardens, I love my house. It really fits my soul."

Meanwhile, Bob — who helps with guests but does a lot of the computerwork and management — said it's not what he expected for his retirement, but he's having fun as well.

"It’s always nice to be with people, find out what they do, where they’re from and their families," Bob said. "They become friends."