Winston - I have worked though about 9 different living places with darkrooms of one sort or other in all.
One apartment had the darkroom in a half bath, with shelves that fit onto rails attached to the walls either side of the toilet. You printed on the enlarger on the highest shelf, and then slipped the print down a shelf to the developer tray, sideways to the stop, down a shelf to the fixer, over to the hold bath, etc. The hold bath would be filled with fresh water from an attachement that fit over the sink faucet to do final wash at the end of a session and here the waste water was funnelled down into the toilet.
You don't need running water; a floor drain is nice to save carrying buckets of used solutions and hold water back upstairs though. If you lug water in, it is always possible to install a small pump to pump it out and down a drain when you get tired of lugging the waste water out.
I have also set up in two different bathrooms (this was pre-kids, but were in 1 bathroom 2 bedroom apartments), with a dark out blind that popped into the window (one had a vent fan and the outside window was left open a crack). A pile of towels filled the light gap under the bottom of the door. The enlarger rolled in on an old microwave cart, and was rolled into a closet in the spare bed room. The lower cabinet of the cart stored trays, stock solutions, etc. I put a plywood shelf covered in mac-tac over the bathtub for a working surface. The safe light attached to a clip on the side of the back shelf of the microwave cart and was bouced off the celing to light the room. A couple of nails either side of the door frame allowed the extension cord to get up off the floor for the occasion when my mate would call to come in and use the room for the purpose it was intended.
No darkroom, particularly your first one needs to be perfect.
Start out loading film into a daylight tank (in a truly fully dark closet at night for darkroom-less places), and there is nothing to keep you from doing the processing of the film in the kitchen and then hang the film to dry in the bathroom shower (usually the least dusty place in most houses).
Then move to printing in a room in the basement, or wherever where you get in the habit of carrying a 5L or pail of water in each session to allow you to mix up fresh print developer. A 8x10 tray takes about 1L to easily work with it. Stop bath can be re-used, and fixer is generally always re-used. Then use a holding bath for prints after they are fixed. You can take the holding bath/pail upstairs and wash finished prints in the kitchen sink or bath tub, etc, at the end of the session.
If you have never done this before, we can try to link up schedules, and I will run you though processing a flim, and printing some negatives that have already been processed and are ready to print. I will do this on top of the washing machine and dryer if it takes place at my end to show you that a perfect darkroom is not necessary to get you started.
I'm out near Erin Mills and Dundas in s/w Mississauga. I can work out a delivery time if you don't have easy access to a car Give me a call (905) 823-2805. I am home most night after 6. .
Mike.
