The first place to start is in your head. What are you looking for? How do you see yourself using the space? Are you interested in low water plants, low maintenance, a full and flowery cottage garden or something in between? Do you need a space for kids to play, do you entertain and if so what kind of entertaining do you do? Is your property flat or sloped? Do you have to create privacy screens or enhance the view? Also, it's important to know what zone you live in? Northern Utah grows very different plants than southern Utah. Are you starting from scratch (as in no existing landscape or sprinkler system) or are you improving on what is already in place? There is a lot to think about and having specific questions may help get answers you will be happy with. Many nurseries or garden centers have landscape architects or landscape designers on staff and you can arrange with them to design your yard. Fees vary, of course.

We are in the salt lake area and currently have large flat grassy areas and some trees on theborders. We have a hill area in between two levels of flat surfaces and most of the edges are sloped (we are on a two directional hill).
I'd like something low maintenance and low water would be ideal as I do care about water conservation.

The pictures are from after we planted trees and basics on the hill two falls ago, so things have grown a bit. We planted the junipers and a couple of closer smaller trees along the back to provide some shade/insulation. The rooms in the back get pretty hot/cold.

I know I can do pretty large borders and know that they need layers.

I'll head into my garden center and see what they offer.

I'd love any recommendations for landscape designers as well. I know they are abundant, but have no idea on what a reasonable cost baseline would be for just a design.

That is a big yard! But I think you have a lovely start. One way to save water would be to minimize the amount of lawn you have, although I really like how you have your lawn on two levels, so you don't have to give it all up. :) You already mentioned increasing the size of your borders which would help a lot with that. The lawn sloping down to the fence would frustrate me and that would be one of the first areas I would replace with shrubs or groundcovers or trees, or a combination. (and a disclaimer -- lawns suck up water like crazy, but with good care they are relatively low maintenance - shrub and flower beds need mulch and weeding, pruning and deadheading so they keep looking good - I have a neighbor who has decided she doesn't like the extra work needed to maintain the borders so they want to just have their yard be lawn and a veggie garden)

Ornamental grasses could be a lovely addition to your yard. They add height, fullness and movement to the borders and many of them don't require much water (some do, so check the tags). You could repeat a bunch of the same grasses for a cohesive look or play with the sizes and colors for more interest.

I live in Cache Valley so I don't have any idea about what landscape designers charge in SLC. We did work with a nursery up here who drew up a design for us for $50, but they kept the design so they would have it as a reference when we came in to purchase the plants (a good way to guarantee that we purchased them there). We ended up not using that design because it was a little too traditional for our tastes. We put out some feelers for other people to come work with us, but I was too impatient and already had my own ideas of what I wanted. I walked through my yard a lot and imagined things. I'd take pictures from different angles and look at my yard that way, trying to see what I thought was needed. I also browsed a lot online. Houzz has some great inspiration pics and even though nothing we've done in our yard looks exactly like any of the ideabooks I created, it gave me some real good jumping off points. I would save pics of yards and gardens I like and analyze them to see what they had in common. If you get a chance to walk through the Utah House garden in Kaysville, or the demonstration gardens in West Jordan or Orem that might help give you some good ideas about drought tolerant and water wise plants. The folks working at the West Jordan gardens have been super helpful in answering all of my questions when I have gone down there.

If you increase the size of your borders against your house you can add a multi-layered bed, using small trees and shrubs to create interest and shade. There is no rule that beds have to be rectangular, or four feet wide. On the west side of my house the shrub bed ranges from 10 to 15 feet wide and I am going to plant a mix of evergreens and small ornamental trees to help keep it cooler from the hot afternoon sun.

I broke my landscaping into three parts so it felt more manageable (since my hubby and I are doing much of it ourselves. Part one was groundwork -- getting the patio, fire pit, rock work, irrigation system and lawn in. Part two is what we are working on now - and that is getting the bones of the yard established; planting trees and larger shrubs. Part three will be adding color with perennials and other plants.

You didn't show a picture of your patio or deck. You can always make those bigger (diy or not). You don't have to water or weed hardscape (generally - I'm finding that I am weeding my firepit area, so take that with a grain of salt).

One more quick thought -- I would suggest looking at the smaller magnolia trees to fill in the enlarged border around your house. I think that style and shape of tree would be beautiful against your brick. I love thinking about this sort of stuff, so if you have more questions and want to pick my brain I'd love to help.

I think of it as a layer system. Get your large trees in first, planning ahead for plenty of room for growth. then step down to the next level, thinking about shrubs, smaller trees, etc. before moving to flowers.