I always recommend https://www.carendt.com/ for people looking to make small layouts. Brilliant source of information there. The Brits have, by virtue of their limited working space, more track plans developed to work in small areas. I run an Inglenook switching layout myself, which is more of a shunting puzzle than a "prototype" layout, but it's all kinds of fun for me.
With your space, do you want to model the hands-on point to point style of a branch line, or do you want a dogbone for constant running? That'll drive a lot of decisions going forward, as well as scale, era, motive power, and road.
