Tater -
Kits are designed to work best at what we in North America
consider "room temperature" - around 70F. But most yeast will work OK
(although slower) at lower temps, down to 55 or 60F. Colder than
that, and it gets tricky, but plenty of folks here in the frozen North
ferment kit wines in the basement. It will just take a little
longer. Personally, I like the smell of fermenting fruit. I suppose
some people don't, but I wouldn't consider it "overpowering". And
fermentation is mostly finished in a week or 10 days -- not very long,
really.

You will no doubt be astonished at how quickly 25 or 30 bottles of
"practice" wine disappear. If you are going to be making wine on any
sort of regular basis, you will want at least a couple of carboys.
Pretty much all the commercial kits are designed to make 23 liters of
finished wine (approx. 6 US gallons), so that's a handy size. If you
are fermenting fruit, you can make the batch whatever size is
convenient. The nice thing about wine (well, one of them anyway) is
that, once in a carboy and under airlock, you can really take your
time with it -- if you're too busy to rack the wine for a couple of
weeks, it will keep. There's no rush. As long as the carboy isn't
exposed to direct sunlight, and the airlock doesn't run dry, you can
leave wine in it for months (or years) without any ill effects.

One good-sized wine rack should hold 200 bottles or more, and
takes up very little floor space. 20 gallons (US) should make about
100 bottles of wine. So one wine rack will hold two seasons of wine
(assuming you don't drink any or give any away . . .) If you manage
to limit yourself to 20 gallons per year, you've got more self-control
than most of us. :-)

Anyway, welcome to an addictive hobby.

Happy fermenting --

Doug