Mhm, this is a really tricky property.
Preliminary remark:
the floor plan, , has sparked spontaneous enthusiasm in quite a few people (myself included). There are very concrete reasons for this in the floor plan, and you have to be aware of them so they don’t get lost, for me these are: the “flow” from kitchen through dining room to the sunken living room in the rear, quiet part of the house – in my opinion perfect! From the LR no view of cooking pots, a strong connection between LR/DR, and at the same time the LR was established as an independent, perceptible room in the first place through the sunken level (absolutely keep this) – great. Without the sunken part, no such excellent LR spatial feeling. Great terrace situation, the straight staircase fits perfectly and finally doesn’t take up inappropriate space HERE, but even saves some in the ground floor. No pointless 20m² entrance area. Very harmonious connection ground floor to upper floor, kids facing south. With roof terrace via garage, parents via LR as well. LR in the sloping part of the property, sunken area probably makes sense there anyway.
I consider all this first-class, it arouses the desire to “live there.” Absolutely preserve.
So why am I writing at all?
Because of the two points from : garage as welcome greeting and light blocker, and DR with northern light. I can’t estimate if and how exactly one can change that without losing the advantages, but because of those two points I would definitely go over options again with the architect; one you named yourself with narrowing the garage, helps a bit but not really fundamentally.
One possible approach, sketched in words:
1. mentally cut off the LR, the DR with the rest of the house slides down at the LR by about 1.8-2.5m. The overlap LR/DR remains but is reduced by half. This creates a new terrace door for the DR with its own light.
2. if possible, also move the right supply part of the house (storage/WC) into the new open space north of the DR = east of the LR, then there would be space east of the house/on the plan’s right for a garage (how big is hard to estimate as no dimensions are available)
A rough cut-out exercise as a photo, LR and terrace are in the old position, entrance with cloakroom in the SE still has to be added...
