For several years my workshop was exceedingly small. I never measured it,but I'm guessing about 7' x 10 or 12'. I that shop I had a 12" Sears Atlas lathe,with a Butterfly die filer mounted on the end of the cabinet(I bought from a store that closed),a Sears floor model drill press,a #4 Burke mill,a bench grinder and a work bench about 30" x 4' long. There was about 18" to 2' between the lathe and the work bench where I could stand and work.
I lived in that small house for about 12 years. I had to go get a large dog to keep from getting broken in. My neighbor got her house shredded by burglers. They tore up her upholstered furniture looking for hidden money.
I did some of my best work in there. The Sears Atlas lathe was new,but a frustrating lathe to be sure. It took many hours to do something I could do pretty quickly with my next lathe,which was a 1024 Jet. My first DECENT lathe.
I will say that I got very lucky buying that lathe. About 1974,I bought the Sears lathe on sale for $850.00. The next year,there was a huge price increase,and I was able to sell it for much more than I had paid,to a motor rewinding shop. The Sears lathe was really an armature lathe anyway. That,plus a bit more went into the $1750.00 Jet lathe.