Most people work in a room that is also something else. The constraint is not space so much as the cost of setting up and putting away, because anything that takes fifteen minutes to prepare will not get used on a short evening.
Reduce the setup cost
The aim is to be working within two minutes. A board that lives ready with paper taped to it, a palette that closes with the paint still in it, and a single container of water do more for output than any amount of extra space.
A wet palette is particularly valuable here, because it removes the need to remix from scratch each session.
Light
Consistent light matters more than abundant light. Working under a warm bulb one evening and daylight the next makes colour decisions unreliable, and it is invisible until you compare the results.
One decent daylight-balanced lamp positioned to the side of your working hand solves both the colour and the shadow problem cheaply.
Containing the mess
The realistic worry in a shared room is damage. A sheet of hardboard as a work surface, a lidded water container and a rule about where solvents may be opened will prevent nearly all of it.
Aerosols, fixative included, should not be used indoors in a room people live in. That is a genuine health point, not a tidiness one.
Drying and storage
Drying space is the constraint nobody plans for. A wire rack or a few bulldog clips on a line handles it in almost no floor area.
Store finished work flat and interleaved. Rolling paper introduces a curl that never fully comes out and makes framing harder later.
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