R111 R157 R158 I discovered a website that had blueprints of various tv show layout about a decade ago but can't remember it's name as I would like to view them all again.
It had the Jeffersons apartment, Brady Bunch house & several others but I can't recall which ones.
One of them was the Golden Girls house blueprint which at the time answered all my questions about the house layout.
Over the years while watching, I too would think that the garage was behind the wall phone in the kitchen. However, the blueprint showed a laundry/mudroom there that was about 6 ft. by 6 ft. for the washer/dryer to up against the wall & about a 3 ft. hallway which led out to the backyard (enough for the mudroom door to open but not hit the wall of Rose's bedroom which is indeed there. Despite what some confused fans think, she isn't made to sleep in the garage regardless how stupid her St. Olaf stories are LOL.)
In only one episode Dorothy (I think) was correctly bringing in a clothes basket from the laundry room into the kitchen but it is never referred to by its name at all during the series run leading to many confused fans. In too many episodes, the writers/characters imply that when they enter the kitchen that they came from the garage (or they say they are going to the garage & then enter the laundry room making many viewers = including myself think the garage is behind the house). The garage is in fact in front of the house on the right side (as the house stock photo at the start of the show implies). This means that the kitchen is behind the garage as it's on the right side of the house as well.
The garage episodes (the minks, turning the garage into another room, etc.) show that there is a door that goes to the kitchen opposite the garage door wall & there is a side door on the right of the garage that leads to the right side of the property's yard area. When the girls say they are going to the garage in the kitchen, they exit out the small 6 by 6 ft. laundry room behind the wall phone wall and walk behind the sink window, down past the refrigerator wall & around to enter the side door of the garage located on its right.
When the rest home burns down in an early season 1 episode, it implies that they have to make room for Sophia so some of her stuff might be stored along the back wall of the garage where the kitchen door is on most episodes which might explain why the girls never use it. I believe in another episode the girls say THEY (not Blanche) have too much stuff in the garage which also might explain why the garage door to the kitchen isn't used. In sit-com reality, the actresses would never be allowed to walk towards the kitchen door to the garage (just as no actress was allowed to sit directly opposite Dorothy's usual seat at the kitchen table. The last girl in the room would always pull up a chair in between Dorothy's middle seat & the one Blanche usually sat in but could never be the fourth person sitting at the table). Actors aren't shown with their backs to the viewers unless something in the script calls for it & even then it's only for a brief remark or stunt.
The blueprints also included some landscaping around the tv sets houses (sorry Jeffersons) & the Golden Girls home had flower beds on the right side of the garage with only its side door interrupting them. The back side (where the kitchen was) had more flower beds & a presumably small palm type tree near the kitchen window but not visible which explains why you don't see it in any shots the "lesbian Jean" episode). There was a stone walkway that started at the front driveway that connected the side garage door to the back door of the laundry room. It was just a foot or two from all of the flower beds that surround the back & right side of the home.
Perhaps another unrealistic thing is during the first season you could see what looked like apartments or other buildings out the kitchen window but later on they were never seen again. Destroyed by an unmentioned hurricane between episodes?