here is an option that i have found works great. buy pickup loads of spoiled baled hay. sells for about fifty cents a bale. takes flakes about 3 inches to 4 inches thick and scatter them out in a checkerboard pattern. you can do a solid pattern, takes more hay. but it works wonders. the hay keeps the rain from impacting the soil (which is what causes the erosion). yet the rain goes through eventually, while the hay is decomposing and making soil. plus the hay sprouts new grass from the hay. if you have a really rocky but close to flat area, leave the bales tied up and lay them with the straw sticking up. place them in a solid pad, and plant directly into the bales. works great for potatoes. as the potatoes grow, the bales decompose into soil. good luck.

Many years ago we bought a house of that vintage. I went to the Beamis Bag Company and bought a bolt of burlap and made drapes for the whole house.Burlap does present some problems. It's hard on your hands. Figure on getting your machine cleaned completely when you're thru. If you get a good quality burlap (you should) it has some body but it's a little stiff and takes some persuading to drape nicely but it is a wonderful texture and color. The quality does matter. I looked at the decorator stuff and almost decided against using burlap. But the best commercial bag material was very different and it was still quite cheap. If you are going to make roman shades(not very difficult) you might consider some iron on backing. I would simplify everything. Good luck..I think you'll have fun.

Sorry, no photos, but our gameroom (about 18' by 30', if I recall correctly) has a wall of floor to ceiling windows at one end, a window over a little kitchen area at the other, and windows in each of the four little bays. All have burlap curtains lined in blackout lining, European pleated on rings, hung from silver-toned rods that look sort of like plumbing pipes. I had spent so much money on hand-embroidered silks and linens for the rest of the window treatments in this house that the $2/yard hemp-toned burlap looked really good to me. They are no dustier than anything else here in this agricultural area, have been very practical, and I love the texture. I only use natural fabrics for window treatments, but I find that that choice does not limit me in terms of textural contrast at all. The blackout lining holds the shape of the curtains very effectively. We needed that because the gameroom is also where the largest flat screen t.v. is, so effective light control is important. One other thing that I have done with burlap in the past: cut it, shape it into an irregular wedge, starch it, and use it as a sort of sculptural, fixed, partial shade over a weird attic window.

I did this with burlap years ago on a wall that was not in very good shape. As I recall, I stapled or thumbtacked around the edges which I then covered with trim of some sort. I'm not sure starch or wallpaper paste would work since burlap can be heavy. I have used the liquid starch method when I did a crazy piecey sort of treatment in a bathroom once. Loved that when I wanted to remove it, it just peeled it off the wall, wash and then could reuse the fabric if you wanted to. Didn't have to even clean the walls after :)