I’ve had so many questions about our New Old Wormy Chestnut Floors. So here goes!
By the way. NO, our kitchen is NOT finished. Didn’t we begin the process like a million years ago?! Here’s a photo that pretty much sums it up….
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Debbie Bosworth
is a certified farmgirl at heart. She’s happily married to her beach bum Yankee husband of 20 years. She went from career gal to being a creative homeschooling mom for two of her biggest blessings and hasn’t looked back since. Debbie left her lifelong home in the high desert of Northern Nevada 10 years ago and washed up on the shore of America’s hometown, Plymouth, MA, where she and her family are now firmly planted. They spend part of each summer in a tiny, off–grid beach cottage named “The Sea Horse.”
“I found a piece of my farmgirl heart when I discovered MaryJanesFarm. Suddenly, everything I loved just made more sense! I enjoy unwinding at the beach, writing, gardening, and turning yard-sale furniture into ‘Painted Ladies’ I’m passionate about living a creative life and encouraging others to ‘make each day their masterpiece.’”
Rebekah Teal
is a “MaryJane Farmgirl” who lives in a large metropolitan area. She is a lawyer who has worked in both criminal defense and prosecution. She has been a judge, a business woman and a stay-at-home mom. In addition to her law degree, she has a Masters of Theological Studies.
“Mustering up the courage to do the things you dream about,” she says, “is the essence of being a MaryJane Farmgirl.” Learning to live more organically and closer to nature is Rebekah’s current pursuit. She finds strength and encouragement through MaryJane’s writings, life, and products. And MaryJane’s Farmgirl Connection provides her a wealth of knowledge from true-blue farmgirls.
Cathi Belcher
an old-fashioned farmgirl with a pioneer spirit, lives in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. As a “lifelong learner” in the “Live-Free-or-Die” state, she fiercely values self-reliance, independence, freedom, and fresh mountain air. Married to her childhood sweetheart of 40+ years (a few of them “uphill climbs”), she’s had plenty of time to reinvent herself. From museum curator, restaurant owner, homeschool mom/conference speaker, to post-and-beam house builder and entrepreneur, she’s also a multi-media artist, with an obsession for off-grid living and alternative housing. Cathi owns and operates a 32-room mountain lodge. Her specialty has evolved to include “hermit hospitality” at her rustic cabin in the mountains, where she offers weekend workshops of special interest to women.
“Mountains speak to my soul, and farming is an important part of my heritage. I want to pass on my love of these things to others through my writing. Living in the mountains has its own particular challenges, but I delight in turning them into opportunities from which we can all learn and grow.”
Dori Troutman
Dori Troutman is the daughter of second generation cattle ranchers in New Mexico. She grew up working and playing on the ranch that her grandparents homesteaded in 1928. That ranch, with the old adobe home, is still in the family today. Dori and her husband always yearned for a ranch of their own. That dream came true when they retired to the beautiful green rolling hills of Tennessee. Truly a cattleman’s paradise!
Dori loves all things farmgirl and actually has known no other life but that. She loves to cook, craft, garden, and help with any and all things on their cattle farm.
Mary Murray
describes herself as a goat charmer, chicken whisperer, bee maven, and farmers’ market baker renovating an 1864 farmhouse on an Ohio farm. With a degree in Design, Mary says small-town auctions and country road barn sales "always make my heart skip a beat thinking about what I could create or design out of what I’ve seen.”
Rooted in the countryside, she likes simple things and old ways … gardening, preserving the harvest, cooking, baking, and all things home. While you might find her selling baked goods from the farm’s milkhouse, teaching herself to play the fiddle, or sprucing up a vintage camper named Maizy, you will always find her in an apron!
Mary says, “I’m happiest with the simple country pleasures … an old farmhouse, too many animals, a crackling fire, books to read, and the sound of laughter … these make life just perfect.”
Alexandra Wilson
is a budding rural farmgirl living in Palmer, the agricultural seat of Alaska. Alex is a graduate student at Alaska Pacific University pursuing an M.S. in Outdoor and Environmental Education. She lives and works on the university’s 700 acre environmental education center, Spring Creek Farm. When Alex has time outside of school, she loves to rock climb, repurpose found objects, cross-country ski on the hay fields, travel, practice yoga, and cook with new-fangled ingredients.
Alex grew up near the Twin Cities and went to college in Madison, Wisconsin—both places where perfectly painted barns and rolling green farmland are just a short drive away. After college, she taught at a rural middle school in South Korea where she biked past verdant rice paddies and old women selling home-grown produce from sidewalk stoops. She was introduced to MaryJanesFarm after returning, and found in it what she’d been searching for—a group of incredible women living their lives in ways that benefit their families, their communities, and the greater environment. What an amazing group of farmgirls to be a part of!
Nicole Christensen
Suburban Farmgirl Nicole Christensen calls herself a “vintage enthusiast”. Born and raised in Texas, she has lived most of her life in the picturesque New England suburbs of Connecticut, just a stone’s throw from New York State. An Advanced Master Gardener, she has gardened since childhood, in several states and across numerous planting zones. In addition, she teaches knitting classes, loves to preserve, and raises backyard chickens.
Married over thirty years to her Danish-born sweetheart, Nicole has worked in various fields, been a world-traveler, an entrepreneur and a homemaker, but considers being mom to her now-adult daughter her greatest accomplishment. Loving all things creative, Nicole considers her life’s motto to be “Bloom where you are planted”.
Rebekah, I think I am absolutely GREEN with envy on those floors. OH. MY. WORD. Honestly, I can’t think of anything more beautiful. And that picture of your amazing old farmhouse is just incredible. I think I’m ready to come visit now! 🙂 – Dori, the Ranch Farmgirl –
I love your old wormy floors! What a neat idea. Your home is coming right along.
The floors are beautiful! I love wormy chestnut as well, and have a handful-made bowl from it. Cooler weather in N GA the past couple of days. A great improvement over the hot weather all summer. Can’t wait to see the completed kitchen!
Fantastic!
X – QUE – SET!!!!! and if it looking greener west of you – that happens to be me!!!
Thanks for sharing.
Rebekah, the floor is gorgeous! (Or like you said.) You will always have a great story to share with folks who come to see your new kitchen! Sounds like we may hear a sequel with your cabinet installation. Hope that it goes smoothly!
As always, I smile and chuckle when I read your post.
Love your floors. I love all the character that comes with old and vintage things, and the stories that go with them. Loved your post :/)
I am extremely jealous. They are beautiful. I am living my small farm dream life through all of you. I am too old and my husband is too “citified” so, you go, girl and I will so enjoy the beauty of your hard work.
BEEOOOTIFUL! Love those floors, and what a way to give life back to that wormy chestnut tree.
Not one to use gushy words, but, OMG! I am sawoooooning over those pics of your new wormy chestnut floors….*sigh*……ENJOY!
The flooring is AWESOME!!!! If I had the resources that you have there, I would have done the exact same thing. I like things that are NOT like everyone elses!
Oh, I am even more ” green ” with envy than Dori! Love the story, the up-cycling and the beauty of your new floors will shine through for years to come as you make new family memories in your old/new farm kitchen! Now, truth be told, I cannot be tooooo envious… We are on the tail end of installing our new bamboo flooring in our modern farmhouse kitchen! I’m loving them too! but oh, yours are sooooooooooo dreamy! Lucky you! Wormy Chestnut …. sigh….
Let’s just say I’m really late catching up on my blog reading. But, the wood is gorgeous! When my parents built a house in the late 70s they used “blue cottonwood” planks from the Mississippi river for paneling in the den and for cabinetry in the kitchen. Huge cottonwood trees would fall into the river and stay submerged for as long as 100 years, eventually floating to the surface, then retrieved to be sawn into lumber. The color wasn’t so much blue, but a warm grey. Well, kind of bluish I guess. I remember the old sawmill man, probably haven’t thought about him since the 70s! I remember him bragging to my dad that he only picked out the best wood from his ‘special, largest, bluest tree’, lol.
Ok, just check to your blog after reading the article in here’s the thing in the magazine. But what you don’t give is the cornbread recipe! Is that available? Thanks, Becka
yes! I’ve been meaning to post it; I’ve wanted to take pics, but haven’t. But I’ll post the recipe itself here tomorrow! check back! it IS a very special recipe! pics will have to come later. 🙂
I posted the recipe here:
http://www.rebekahteal.com/2014/11/chestnut-cornbread.html
ENJOY! and let me know what you think!
Hi Rebekah! I’m getting caught up on your blog and I just read this about the floors. I have to tell you we have a woods that is full of ash trees. And those ash trees are being destroyed by the emerald ash borer. I talked to a local lumber company and in the spring we’re going to take those ash trees, cut them down, and take them to this lumber company to be planed for wooden floors for our house!I think it is going to be beautiful!
I love your kitchen floor! And yes I can believe the kitchen isn’t finished yet. I am going on my third winter in one room in the basement. One snow away from going cray-cray!
Cindy Bee
Love wooden floors, but when you live do close water, the dampness kills it. Your all the time changing it because it gets warped and buckles. But I love wood especially pine , walnut and cherry wood..,grateful flooring….never thought wormy word be good for anything except barns. You did a great job!