You could have two stepped back walls with a terraced planting bed or lawn and the lower wall leaves room for a planting bed or lawn at driveway level. Bring it all the way to the street.

Please provide a photo (here in comments) taken from the street and showing the whole wall and front porch steps.

If the porch steps are concrete, a concrete wall would not be out of place.

Why can’t you slope the yard?

Where in the world are you?

I like the existing railroad ties, they go with your steps. Why do you need to replace the retaining wall? Is it failing? Why? Not enough weep holes? Rotting wood?

I second putting a lovely flowering tree in your front yard. No need to put a garden bed underneath it.

There are situations when sloping the yard isn't possible. For example:

1. When the grade required for the slope exceeds the maximum safe limits for the type of soil, or

2. When the slope would result in stormwater flowing directly into a driveway and/or garage.

We had the second issue - storm water would flow down from the sloped landscaping bed onto the left side of the upper driveway. It was fine during the spring - however, it was not fine when the run off water resulted from melting snow. It would re-freeze = a very slippery area along the upper right part of the driveway (and at the end of the walkway) for visitors.

After our first winter ended, we decided to add retaining walls to our front yard.

Our landscaping bed is much larger than OP's = we were able to add a small retaining wall to divide the landscaping bed into an upper and lower bed + ran a very short sloped "wall" along the front portion of the landscaping bed (along the curve of the sidewalk). The upper bed/retaining wall ends before the face of the garage and the lower bed gently slopes down to where the walkway and driveway intersect.

Unfortunately, the way OP's yard was initially graded, in addition to where and how the walkway was installed, caused the need for taller retaining walls on both sides of the the walkway.

I assume that if OP wanted to spend the money to remove the existing walkway and beds and re-slope the yard + add a larger tiered landscaping bed + have a new walkway made, the need for the taller walls on both sides of the current walkway could be eliminated. However, that would be $$$ vs. replacing the current retaining walls (which still isn't inexpensive - we had our stone retaining walls replaced with paver ones a few years ago).

OP - I would have the retaining walls made out of pavers that either match your walkway pavers or in a color that complements both the walkway pavers and your brick. I think that would look better than introducing another material (stone). I personally am not a fan of wood retaining walls.

You are not a gardener so I think you should eliminate the little corner patch in front of your walk. Add it to the lawn.

Do you dislike the railroad ties of the current retaining wall? A stone wall in a color matching the pavers would be attractive but sounds expensive to me. If you are not concerned with price then you could also consider brick, which would go with your house.

Is this what you had in mind?

A compact laceleaf weeping japanese maple could look really great on the left corner near driveway on the lamp post side of the walk. I can’t tell if you have enough room for it as to will probably need 5-6’ as it matures. If you do, don’t plant it in the little bed (not enough space) you currently have on the right side of the walkway when viewed from the driveway.

I think your house would really benefit from having a portico added.