Hi Terry, Welcome back. Several members live in apartments such as Danielle (MissyD) and Josse (Tafelzpitz?) so they have first hand experience and solutions to your situation.
If I was living in an apartment with a 'Significant-Other' I would do one of three things:
1, Do heavy sanding*, spraying* and smelly work* during your warmer periods when you can access the patio, and do work that requires little or no major '*' at other times.
2, If you have a utility room, then confine much of your '*' work there with defined plans for mess reduction and orderliness so as to appease 'Sig-Oth' as she might want to/want you to do something chore like and boring when you are in the utility room boat building.
3, Sit 'Sig-Oth' down and have a frank discussion about your intentions and have prepared plans and methods of how you intend to keep the results of '*' to a minimum. And keep to them to prevent nuclear melt down etc.
I am single and my house reflects this! But I have some plans to keep my home habitable as there would be a point where the fumes or dust would affect you as much as your wife. Keep newspapers for putting down and working on to keep mess to an area that can be wrapped up and dumped in one go, and that will absorb spillage giving you enough time to wipe the worst up and dump the paper and mess.