I used to bake weekly but don't any more. In my new low-carb life style there is very little place for bread. So sad. Our local chain (Franz) has come out with a keto friendly affordable bread that will fit in with my eating needs pretty well but I haven't tried it yet. I really miss toast and have hopes for a limited return in my future.
I used a large (huge) ceramic bowl, I warm it up with hot water dump that out and put a folded towel down in my sink and then proof my yeast in the prewarmed bowl. I do everything in the bowl, all the mixing and kneading etc. Shape it into loaves/rolls what evers. Back in my Alaskan days, I'd do the dishes in the diswasher while I started my batch and do the final proofing inside the warm dry dish washer (you do want to turn off any additional heater you have for the dry cycle). When you are done, all you have to do is wash out the bowl, no counters or anything.
Fresh bread does go stale quickly, that's because we don't typically have all those conditioners and additives. So I also plan my menu accordingly and have many ways to use the bread other than just snarfing on it as it comes out of the oven. I also used to make a big batch of sauce for each week, whether that was tomato or chicken stock or whatever and often did that at the same time as I was working on the dough.