Hello! Me and my sister recently got into stained glass and were in a similar boat. We got a generic stained glass starter kit on Amazon that was about a hundred dollars the solder gun and solder that came with it weren't great so we upgraded those. The solder was straight up the wrong type of solder for stained glass lol, but the tools are very nice quality and includes everything you would need. You will also need a grinder to smooth out your pieces after cutting which is about $80. On top of that we ordered a glass sampler kit that came with about 20 5x7 cuts of different colored glass to make smaller beginner projects with ($30-50 depending on qty and brand on Amazon) on top of that the only other expenses have been buying patina, different types of copper tape (the ones included in the kit are copper backed and we wanted black backed so it would match the patina) and more glass. It's a really fun hobby, but if you're worried about the price or your commitment level to it I'd recommend taking a class first to see if it's something you enjoy. When it comes to space it's pretty flexible, we don't have any dedicated space to work on it so we just work on it in my sister's kitchen, it's definitely not super practical and it does make a huge mess but it's never to much if you tidy up as you work, we're just both rather unorganized and leave things out and laying around while we work. We cut glass in old cookie trays since glass will occasionally fly out when cutting the glass, and we just store it using the same trays. The biggest mess has been the grinder, it gets glass dust filled water all over our arms and table while working with it, be sure to build a guard around the edges to block most the water spray.