Have you considered the CSA layout? It's QWERTY, but the most commonly used accented characters are easily accessible. It's not ergonomic for programming, but switching between US and CSA doesn't require a significant adjustment (once you're used to it, at least).
Seems like a good one, and pretty fitting considering I'm in Canada right now :)
I'll keep it in mind if I end up making myself a desktop PC in the future. But I guess the hardest part about any good alternative design isn't so much the design itself but its adoption and how often you're interacting with it to rewire your brain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSA_keyboard