Hello, all - I'm hoping you can help as we are stumped with this design dilemma.

We are undertaking a whole house renovation of a 1960s ranch. The garage is tiny 21'6" x 19'6" and made even less efficient by a 3' wide step opposite the garage door leading to the original entry point from the garage. The architect has designed a 6' extension off the front of the garage accompanied by a 9'8" x 9'4" addition to serve as the drop zone. This helps to help compensate for the overall size, but there are 2 issues. One is the added cost (with pouring new footers and flat concrete work); the other is that there still doesn't seem to be enough usable storage/circulation space to accommodate 4 bicycles and a few large recreational water craft (windsurf board, kayak inflatable stand up paddleboards).

One option is to minimize the drop zone addition to occupy only the space between the garage and half of the existing window to become more a circulation space from the garage, move the functions of that room to the existing front room along the wall shared with the garage, and reorient the main entry to the far right side of the large window (the existing front door area would become a large window for a workspace). This helps contain the cost some, but not enough. The wall shared with the fireplace needs to stay put.

Our contractor pitched moving the shared garage/interior wall into the house 3', but it will need to be raised a little above the existing concrete step (floor joists) and encroaches too much into the planned dining/living area and doesn't seem like it will solve the lack of usable space problem.

The more I stare at this, the more I wonder if we need to both extend the garage as planned, but also consider some sort of bump out along the side to increase storage and breathing room (though this will increase costs, rather than decrease them!) With setback requirements, I think there is about 6' to play with there.

I'd love for you to weigh in on: 1) extending the garage, 2) widening garage and 3) any ideas for gaining direct entry to the house/excellent use of space in existing front room. (Entering through the current door poses many other floorplan issues.)

Thanks in advance!