I'd like to add that I had a similar problem when I started working on my yard 6 or 7 years ago, only it wasn't just a side hill filled with weeds, it was that AND the whole rest of the property. I'll tell you the story and maybe you can get something of value from it: Of necessity, I did what Karinl said and it has worked well, even if it has turned out to be a lot of effort (but what worthwhile endeavor doesn't take real effort?). I picked one part of the landscape -- the front yard -- and mentally sectioned it into chunks and weeded, amended and planted small areas at a time each year until I thought it was presentable, if not truly finished. Meanwhile, each year I either bought mulch or collected leaves and trimmings from neighbors and MADE mulch (can't afford to plop a lot of money down) and completely covered the back and side yards to keep the weeds down until I had time (and money) to address those areas (we have a lawn-less yard -- it's all either mulched or planted). I've never used any kind of physical barrier between the soil and mulch. I DID end up Round-uping the side yard several times in the past few years because the weeds there were more persistant and stubbornly grew right through a 5-inch layer of mulch; but otherwise, I've definitely learned the value of thick mulch and a scufflehoe. Also, the years of mulching the side yard have improved the soil there tremendously, and now that I've addressed both the front and back yard, the side is in excellent condition to start on. The end result is that the amount of weeding I have to do now is minimal (and it was never overwhelming to begin with because I've been working small sections at a time) and I have a real landscape (except for the side yard, which I have yet to begin -- but it's mulched!). I highly recommend the "divide and conquer" approach. And since it's a grass-less slope that you're working with, don't overestimate the value of collecting leaves from your own and neighbor's yards to mulch with and help improve the soil -- it's like magic! And as was hinted at earlier, short of laying down concrete, there is no such thing as a permanent solution in a landscape. You'll have to do some kind of maintenance every growing season -- that's just the way it is. Sorry for the book. Hope it helped.

I can only tell you what I did with great results so far (it has only been 11 days): 1) I dethatched (you might not need it - I did). 2) I rented a slit seeder and ran it in two directions. This cuts grooves in the soil and drops the seeds right in. 3) I topdressed with compost and peat moss. I literally just flung it around. With a few waterings, it all settled into place nicely. I also spread some Milorganite, which is cheap. 4) Then I watered lightly 3x daily. So far, there has been a lot of germination in the spots receiving full sunlight. There has been light germination in the areas receiving moderate sunlight, and no germination to really speak of in an area that doesn't receive much sunlight at all. The places that are receiving the best germination are also the places where I really took my time in spreading the compost and peatmoss. Having read this board and others for the past year and making a lot of mistakes along the way, perhaps the best thing that I have every learned here was to make sure there is seed-to-soil contact, as well as the value of a topdressing. As for your weeds, I can tell you my neighbors' experience. Three of them are organic. 1) The guy with the best lawn (It is unbelievable) took care of his weed problem with chemicals before going organic. Now the lawn is so thick that nothing could penetrate it even if it wanted to. Part of me thinks that he must still use some type of preemergent in the spring, but I have been told no. But my point is that he really worked on getting the weeds out first as well as thickening up the grass. So you might want to consider spreading a chemical preemergent for a year so that your grass has some time to fill in properly. 2) The second guy also has a beautiful lawn. Also very green. He just has some clover. There is probably more clover than I would want, but to anyone who drives by it is a really really dark lush lawn. 3) The third guy never overseeded and his "organic" program consists of minimal applications (I think only 1 annually) of organic fertilizer, no weed pulling, no preemergents, etc. His lawn is horrible. I don't even know where to start with him. I dethatched and slit seeded for him the other day, but I think he really needs to apply a preemergent next spring so that we can properly overseed next fall without so many crabgrass plants blocking us.

Wow, tons of great ideas and different ways to go with this. I really appreciate you all brain storming this with me and your ideas. Please keep them coming! I think a long narrow table could work, but I think it would kind of make the space feel kind of tight. I'm a just touch claustrophobic, so if the space is tight, I'm apt not to use it. I know you're thinking well a booth can be a little 'squished' too, honestly I'd sit on chair side and leave the booth to the kids if we went that way. *LOL* Les, I really like the idea of a drop leaf table for the space, dropping one side and pushing against the short sink wall unless we needed the extra seating. I wonder how hard it would be to find a 8', possibly 9' long drop leaf type of harvest table like that. The island sounds great, especially from a serving point of view, but this will be our primary eating area so I'd like to have the option of a table I think. I like the small upper windows idea too, I'm going to bring that up with my DH. See what we did was flip flop part of the downstairs area to make the space work better for us. The kitchen and formal dining room were on the other side of the house. The thing is the dining room in this old house was built too tight to really comfortably accommodate more than a few people .. can you tell I don't like to feel crowded. *LOL* So it really wasn't a good use of space, the kitchen had too many door and window issues to have a good flow. Now on this side, this back eating area was chopped into two cramped rooms. One being a dark bathroom, the other just kind of a no mans land of wasted space back entry area .. this opened to the deck which made no sense. Where the kitchen we are building is, was dark bedroom, since that side of the house is North facing. So it made sense to open this area all to one space, put in the doors leading to the deck to let in natural light and make this a brighter, more useable space. The eating area is not ideal, but neither was the other arraignment and it was in the interior of the house, so cramped *and* dark. At least over here you can open the doors, people can be on the deck, people can be inside and you have an illusion of space. Now next on the hit list is taking the old kitchen and dining area and reworking that space into a master suite. At that point we actually have three rooms to open up. An old library that we'll be using for our sitting, office area, there is a double sided fireplace in the middle of that room and the dining room, so by opening on both sides of that it will open the spaces to each other, yet leave them intact as a different space. The dining area and part of the kitchen becomes a nice sized master bedroom, what's left of the kitchen our bathroom.

OP here. we decided to order a sectional from pottery barn. the shorter side measures 89 in while the longer side is 152. alternatively we could order one slightly smaller sectional 89 x 111. which size would be better. thanks a bunch.