I do not think that turf grass will help with this type of errosion. Why? Because I have no grass left except for Johnson's grass where the water is washing in towards my own home. Personally, I do not recommend doing anything at all until your drainage issue is taken care of. Kathy, you are going to bang your head against a wall with this one. I know it's driving you nuts, and you'll have to wait for contractor to take care of things...but until the root of the problem is able to be solved, anything at all will be a temporary bandaid that will eventually have to be fixed or corrected. Junipers can't live through all that water, they want dry soil. Honestly, if we were having a "normal" water year, this wouldn't be such an issue for you. Because it's extrordinary it is seeming like a larger problem that it may 'normally' be. But I don't think plant material or low walls etc. are going to fix it. Less water being aimed at your house will! Honeygum, Kathy did post a picture of a non-existant rock garden under a few feet of rushing water that her poor hubby was trying to hold back with pieces of board. It looked like a river aimed directly at her house. GGG

Baycor cloth for weed barrier at OBC Northwest in Oregon. Ships the cloth and staples UPS. Quality is very good, lets air and water through but not weeds. Very strong and UV resistant.

Landscape fabric decomposes after a few years too, or at least becomes so brittle that its not longer effective while still being an annoyance. I have wild morning glories and dandylions, and since they are annuals, smothering for one season is all that is required to keep them from coming up from underneath. The brambles (blackberries, raspberries, etc), bermuda grass, and crab grass are the things that are going to come up through a paper layer - but they'll tear through year-old weed barrier cloth too. I *thought* ivy only spread overground, with new shoots coming where runners had rooted, so that should not be a problem coming up from underneath. The worms to show up in my beds and help mix the compost deeper into the soil, including steadily breaking up a clay layer that comes up close to some of my beds where it crumbles now when I'm digging instead of mashing.

Nicole, good for you for finding a way to make the chairs work for now, they are great chairs in such good shape. Are you sure, though, that you only need 4 yards of fabric each? I ask because I used 7 yards on my little chair. However, a fair piece of that was used to make the welting (although I made way more than I needed!). Here is the link to a yardage chart on a professional upholsterers site I found http://www.carrscorner.com/yardagechart.php I know what you mean about fabric price! I used CL fabric on my chair, but when I was looking for the dining chair fabric I was floored at the prices. That is why I'm using a table cloth to cover the one I'm presently working on! ;) Trancegemini, I am now kicking myself for not taking photos of the reconstruction of the chairs! Yesterday I started to rebuild the wooden chair shown above, and I started from scratch with it! I added all new webbing, replaced the springs and hand tied them, new burlap and now all new padding. I have tear-down photos of both chairs, but got so involved with putting things back together that I didn't think to record that process! Next time for sure. Double welting is the decorative trim used to cover raw ends, and I see from the link I just found that I can still use this on my pink chair looking at the way it is made, but I would have to purchase a special foot for my machine. The link to explain it is below. Scroll down to see all of the article and photos. Here is a link that might be useful: How to make/use double welt cord