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A mildly-interesting two-story house design (including a version with cl*sets, plus one-story parent designs for comparison purposes): In theory (to satisfy code requirements), the living room is on floor 1 and the dining room is on floor 2. But, in practice, the room on floor 1 serves both living and dining purposes, and the room on floor 2 is just an extra living room.
Whether it makes sense hinges on how the first-floor room is reconfigured between living and dining uses. Obviously, folding tables and folding chairs are perfect for dining use. For living use, folding couches apparently are available for purchase, though I'm not sure how compactly they actually fold up. Alternatively, perhaps the folding chairs and folding couches can be replaced with comfy, headrest-equipped office chairs that can serve for both living and dining.
One floor plan that I can't get right is a five-bay colonial with a mudroom-style entrance. Traditional foyers are designed for people who have no coats or wet boots or kids that track dirt everywhere.
I am looking at something like 13.2x8 or 12.8x8.4m (so that the footprint of the house is around 100m2). But no matter how I try, I can't design a staircase that feels natural without interrupting the regularity of the facade.
Having incorporated the rest of your comments to get an idea of what you are looking for, I think I may have a solution for you. A few preliminary items:
To give an example to tie it all together, this is a 5-bay Colonial Revival home in a suburb of Pittsburgh. It was built in 1968 by Bryan, who is a reputable local builder that mostly focuses on custom homes these days but was doing tract houses in the 1960s and 1970s (not to be confused with Ryan Homes, a national developer of tract houses that's been building junk since at least the 1970s). The total area is 1890 sq. ft., though the footprint is only 875 as the second story slightly overhangs on both sides. It has 4 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths. You will notice that the driveway goes down the hill behind the house and the garage is integrated into the basement. Ignore the assymetrical front layout. Here's a more upscale example from 1910. While it precedes the era of widespread automobile ownership, at 6900 square feet, it owner would have probably had a car, or at least a horse. [Note how the driveway leads to a carriage house in the rear [https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4513598,-79.9114955,3a,24.5y,311.56h,95.08t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s_vxsZmkSMf0FSWoXMHGrIw!2e0!5s20220901T000000!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-5.0819782887585205%26panoid%3D_vxsZmkSMf0FSWoXMHGrIw%26yaw%3D311.55661009264486!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDUyMC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D]. The owner would not have entered through the front door.
I initially intended to tell you that your problem was hopeless if you wished to remain architecturally correct, so I consulted The Bible, namely Virginia Savage McAlester's indispensible A Field Guide to American Houses and consulted the sections on Colonial Revival, Georgian, and Federal houses. What I discovered was that, contrary to my mental image of a colonial house, there is a rare variation with a centered gable. While these gables are usually small, and may not protrude from the central mass at all, it would be possible to bump this out and create a large enough area for a mud room. Unfortunately, since, per the book, this occurs in fewer than 5% of Colonial Revival houses and 10% of Georgian and Federal houses, it's hard to find pictures, and bump-outs of sufficient size are less common still. But I don't see why it couldn't be done. This House only bumps out slightly, but you could extend this by 5 feet or so and get a small mud room out of it. Some people build small mudrooms on their houses and they always look tacked-on, but with a central gable running all the way up it would be an integral part of the house, and from there you could just use a standard floor plan.
Beyond this, I don't see why there would be a problem with the stairs. Every house like this I've been in (and I can almost guarantee the layout of the first example) has the stairwell in the center of the house. Basically you'd walk in and there would be an entryway with a foyer leading down the center of the house to the kitchen in the back, with the stairwell running parallel on whichever side you want. To the right there's a family room, and to the left a living room and dining room. You can sacrifice some family room space for a half bath or hide one under the stairs. These houses almost always have four bedrooms.
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