Spread Out, Then Collapse Down

Even if your space is small, another thing you may consider is spreading out when you want to get your DIY on, but doing it in a way that's easy to collapse back down and go back to normal when you're finished. Consider making your workbench table something that extends out or that you can add a leaf to the center of if you need more space to work. A rolling island or workbench that you can pull away from the wall into the center of the room, or even a card table with fold-down legs gives you plenty of room to work, and can fold up nicely and slide between a bookshelf and a wall, or along the wall in a closet when you're finished. We're big fans of making sure you have a permanent work area for what you want to do, but there'll definitely be some times when you want to take over the whole living room for your project, and that's fine! Just make sure that you can set up easily, keep things clean (open the windows, put down some tarp, cover up the valuables with drop cloth or more tarp), and then when it's time to change the workspace back to living space, you can slide everything away easily, you have room to store the tarps and tables you're breaking down, and you have a good vacuum cleaner to pick up any dust left behind. You may not like the idea of turning your living room into a project space, but if it's all covered up nicely while you work and everything folds away neatly when you're done, it won't be a problem.