Thought about this, and I do have a darkroom, so I could do that. I would just be extremely nervous about working with chemicals in complete darkness. It’s one thing to work with dry film in the dark, it’s very much another to work with large amounts of liquids. Maybe if nothing else works out, I’ll give that a shot.
You don't need lots of liquid volume. I process 4x5 film, up to six at a time, in trays using 500ml of solution in each tray. After the film has been in the fixer for half the fixing time, you can turn on the lights.
There is a bit of a learning curve to tray processing, but once mastered, it's really the most flexible and economical of all the methods I know.
You need to realize that you will slop some chemistry out of the tray. The processing trays need to be in larger trays or a sink (or both). That said, I tray-processed on the countertop of my Vienna bathroom for years. I covered the countertop with a plastic bag over which I spread a few overlapping kitchen towels (used only for the darkroom since they got stained with pyro). Worked just fine.
I'd recommend practicing shuffling scrap sheets (you can use old negatives you don't want to print) in a tray of water with the lights on to start with. Then practice with eyes closed, then with the lights out.
There's a lot of info here and over at the LF forums about tray processing techniques. Do a search or two.
Best,
Doremus
