Or workshop, refers to the space where all hand crafted items are made: prototyped, assembled, and finished. It also describes where a small group of craftsmen work; once production increases and becomes more commercialised, this processing space is usually referred to as a factory. Most factories have a smaller workroom or workshop space where one-off, bespoke items and prototyping are carried out.
The workroom here is the space set aside for making furnishings, and whether that space is permanent or temporary is to some extent academic. Permanent space suggests that more equipment, offcuts and materials might be available, or to hand. Temporary implies lack of these, but the flip side of taking space allocated for another use is that you are in effect a tenant and you either have to get on with it or claim squatters rights. It means that you can or must concentrate on bringing one thing to fruition, without too much distraction.
Workroom requirements are covered in the Basic Techniques: Workroom Materials, and Basic Techniques: Workroom Equipment.
For me, the very most important things is a good working surface. I would encourage anyone to invest in a large board, split in half if needed with some sort of centre fixing so that it can be stored elsewhere; to cover it with fixed interlining and lining or calico, even if just for the process. If it has to to go on the floor, so be it, if it can rest over another table – a dining table or snooker table, even table tennis table, or on trestles over the guest bed or anywhere, even better. Or bag the sitting room for a few days and send them all off somewhere so that you can concentrate. But the worktable itself makes a huge difference to the ease in which things can be followed and made. It’s something to pin into, holding the materials taut, and where you can press, without having to move the work around or risk damaging a good surface beneath.
We have a decimated workroom of course, but it’s very basic- no mod cons. We really only need a table, a machine and a storage shelf. We could manage without everything but the table.