I used to have a single-car garage in which I stored all my benching gear and refrigeration gear. Now I live in a house with no garage so I'm forced to move whatever tools I'm using outside, work for a few hours, and then move back into the house at nightfall. The garage was perfect though, I had 3 desks, 1 for benching and 2 for building, and plenty of space to keep everything organized. No worries though, just pieced together 2 single-stages doing the "patio shuffle" over the course of 2 days
Kinda reminds me of my situation about 20 years ago...
I was renting a place that had been converted from tin sided barn into a 2 room apartment (1 room was the combination kitchen and living room, and of course the other was the bedroom).

I later convinced the landlord to let me convert the attic space into a workshop. He agreed, and over the course of several months, and scrounging around for free left-over materials from construction sites, my lab was born. It didn't have any windows, but this also turned out to be part blessing when I accidentally started a small fire when torching on a unit. The fire I got under control quickly, but boy did it create a lot of smoke. I was nervous that the landlord would see it (he lived on the same property), and then shut down my operation. But because there were no windows, the only escape for the smoke was through whatever cracks it could find leading out of the attic space. It took quite a few hours for the smoke to finally dissipate, all the while being stealthy while doing so. I never got caught.

When I move out to California I'll have to at least visit your shop and see what a real workshop is like
Well it isn't my shop, but I'm sure I can arrange a tour

Hahaha that pictures years old. I then switched to nice metal framed work benches, and removed the couch and rugs and all that, got much more organized and clean. Then had wiring added and such to each stand, and then had to move all of it to my fathers home when my mother moved. So now that's all crammed in a very tight 12 by 12 foot square.
Nol -- I thought it was great Just what an experimenters place should be.