I started out in my kitchen as well, then I moved to the basement. Not a great workspace there yet either, currently use a couple of old tables one for pouring and one for measuring and melting wax. However, we are finishing the basement and I am finally going to have a nice space down there to work with. I will be putting in some cabinets and probably looking for some remnant granite (got to find it cheap), so I can set my hot pour pots directly on it and just wipe any wax drippings off of it. I feel your pain with the stuff all over the counters and what not as I have been there.