I am attaching two pictures of my house, the house is sitting on the hill side so my backyard is on uphill side at higher level, Majority of my house are sitting on high side except front garage and one downstair living room with high ceiling. I can access my backyard either from the front left side of the house or from the back right side yard (picture not shown for right side access, the house is sitting on corner lot)

I am looking for a landscape designer to design my front side yard (on left side of the house) to access to the upper backyard. I will demolish all the wood steps and wood boards and take away the juniper plant and garbage. I am thinking about putting four feet of retaining wall (using concrete blocks) at the bottom of the side yard to reduce the slope. (The current slope is about 8' (height) vs 13' width. Total width of side yard is 16' wide)

I am considering options of:
1. Wood stair with handrail;
2. Concrete/brick steps with or without handrail (depending on the slope);
3. Railway tie for saving construction cost?
4, Make curved shape with landscape feature for upper yard access instead of straight stair to reduce the slope. Need to think how to solve drainage issue for this design. using bark, rock or just leave soil as ground cover.
5. What will be the related cost?

Thanks

Janet