Originally posted by SteveM I've never done my own processing but I've been thinking about it....might be a good excuse to get into it. The problem I have is space in the house....how "smelly" are the chemicals now?
Most silver/color devs smell a bit, but fixer (and bleach for color processing) will probably always have a strong smell. Ventilation is extremely important in any darkroom. I do B&W, C41, E6 and Super 8 reversal processing in my home darkroom. C41 is still cheaper to have processed at a lab. E6 (color slide) film processing with Freestyle's Arista kit is cheaper than my local lab when doing more than four rolls at a time.
Some of my friends recommend thedarkroom.com for 127.
FYI, the last Kodachrome (RIP) film was processed to color by Dwaynes on 12/31/11. It can be dev'd to black & white, but the rem jet (carbon black) backing is a pain to remove, it's yellow filter layer makes it tricky to optically print and the process is still somewhat experimental. Getting good exposure and contrast is tricky.
Good luck if you decide to get into home processing, I love it.