Alright houzzers—my husband and I thought we were done fiddling with the layout of our new build, but a new issue came to light yesterday after our lot walk. The way our house will sit, the side of our house is facing our pond, which we think will be a great view for outdoor living space. However, the way our plans are right now (it's actually going to be the reverse of the builders drawing, with the garage on the left and everything else flipped), the master suite is on the right side of the house, and there is no hallway for a door to the side deck to go. We don't want a hallway separating our master bedroom from our master bath and walk-in, so we need an alternative. Another limitation is the fact that our garage is side-loading, and that can't change or it would change the whole facade of the home (because the roof of the garage would be oriented the same as the house rather than the opposite as it's supposed to be). Here's the outside (the garage and breezeway are red):

Here is the plan as it stands now, only reversed with the garage on the left going into the mud/laundry breezeway, going into the kitchen/dining and so on. The side deck on the right would be off the master suite, so there's no way to get to it.

An alternative (not to scale) would be to have a hall behind the master suite out to the deck. We're expanding through the middle of the living room by about 8 feet (not incorporated in previous drawing), so there would be room to make the master bedroom wider and shorter.

Or, we could basically keep the original layout that's in the drawing with the garage on the right, double the length of the garage, keeping it side-loading but at an L with the house, and put a wall in the middle making the other half an indoor/outdoor porch that goes out to a patio. This solves most of our problems if we can stay in budget (we did cut some substantial things, so we have about $30,000 to play with) . My biggest concern is that this is almost the same size as our current living room, kitchen, dining and foyer space which is entirely too large. I don't want this to feel impersonal or overly large compared to the rest of the house. If we're going to have a porch, I'd like it to be cozy and conducive to conversation. We would like to have a wet bar, grill with a range and sink as well as a seating area.

My thought was, we could extend the garage part into as far as the entryway to the breezeway (mud hall), because a bigger garage with room for a workshop makes more sense to me than an oversized porch. Plus, I would like there to be a door from the garage straight into the mudroom. Thoughts? Suggestions?