I'm in the same situation MistaJW - lack of space, and don't want to inflict the noise on the neighbours.
There are a couple of planes you may care to add to the arsenal - a jack and a scrub. The jack can have it's iron ground and honed to a shallow curve, and the frog set fairly well back to allow a thickish shaving. The scrub can be a new one (from experience the Lie-Nielsen is first class, but pricey), or it can be made from an old wooden smoother by grinding the iron to a curve, and set to take a shaving of about 1/16" or a bit thicker - you may have to chisel the mouth open a bit to pass shavings this thick.
Procedure is as follows:
1) Set out the rough boards, brush them clean (wire brush if they're really gritty), and lay out components, taking note of grain pattern. It may help to just take off the surface roughness with a smoother set coarse to see the grain better. Allow plenty on width - 1/4" or so. Saw out, and label each piece with same number as cutting list.
2) Place board on bench, and with the scrub plane, knock off the worst high spots on both sides so that the board sits fairly flat on the bench. A box of thinnish wedges can be useful in the early stages to prop up the lifting bits.
3) Decide which is the face side. Bring the remaining high spots down with the scrub, working across the board. (This may cause splintering off on the back edge, which was the reason for the generous allowance on width.) Start checking for flatness with a straightedge along and across the board.
4) When the surface is about getting clean all over and pretty flat (but scalloped because of the curve in the scrub iron) Bring the jack to work. Take off the high spots by checking where they are with straightedge and winding sticks, and marking them with chalk or pencil. Don't touch the low spots. Work diagonally to the grain to start with, then along the grain as the high spots disappear. The key thing is to keep checking, checking.
5) When the board is straight along and across, and free of wind, do the same again with the try plane, with an iron sharpened straight across and with the corners taken off, set very fine with a tight mouth. Keep checking along and across with the straightedge and winding sticks.
6) When it's flat to your satisfaction, set it edge-up in the vice, and with the jack, get the first edge cleaned up. Then, check with straightedge and try-square where the high spots are, and take them off. Follow with the try-plane, until the edge is straight and square to the face side.
7) Mark the required thickness, and remove the waste with the scrub, then the jack, then the try plane, checking as before with straightedge and winding sticks. Having the gauge-line as a guide as to where to stop obviously helps a lot.
8) The final edge may well be rather ragged with scrub-plane breakout, but if sufficient was allowed in width, that will now be nicely lost when width is gauged, and the edge brought to the line with jack and try. Check frequently well before you reach the gauge line with straightedge and try-square.
9) Trim one end on the shooting board, mark to length, saw off the worst of the waste and trim to line on the shooting board.
The first few will take ages, but like most things, it gets quicker with practice. The key to it is frequent checking of progess with straightedge, winding sticks and square, and only attacking high spots.
