If you have wooden worktops, what wood did you go for and why?

[hellostarling]

We have decided on wooden worktops for at least some of our kitchen and had always assumed we would go for oak. I have now started to understand the many different woods you can get...which did you go for and why? Thoughts much appreciated!

Oak because I'm not very imaginative. Birch looked too light to me and I didn't think I wanted anything darker than oak plus it's much more expensive Oak just seemed classic. I oil when I remember, not really too much of a faff at all

Iroco (sp?), but only as the carpenter said it was really waterproof. I'd never heard of it before. It is nice though, a sort of orangey brown colour.

I haven't had to oil in a couple of years though it's looking a bit worn around the tap. I think I need to do it soon.

Iroko - never needs maintenance and looks great.
Might be too dark for some people but fab with our white high gloss.

Sycamore - had them for 14 years and they have been brilliant. Quite a light wood compared to others. Had to sand them down and rewax about 3 times to remove stains round taps etc but came up good as new. Have been very pleased with them.

We had beech in the last house and cherry in our current house, both finished with Osmo Topoil. The beech was bombproof, but looked a little bland. The cherry is v. pretty, lovely grain, but it is softer than the beech and dents more easily.

In my last house oak but beware of blackening where water gets to it.

In this house, burnt ash - it's gorgeous - when DH has been making them it smell like ground coffee and is very tactile with nice open grain.

If you are really into timber go to a timber yard and pick something you like and get someone to make your worktops for you. You'll get lovely wide staves/ boards and you can pick exactly what you like.

The timber for these (one 4m run and one 2.8m run) was about £400 plus a couple of days labour and lashings of liberon superior danish oil finish or Osmo top oil. If I was making one for a customer say £800 plus VAT including fitting and stuff.

For customers we have used a lot of iroko - very durable and forgiving and easy to refresh. Colour can be very variable so be warned if you buy one on-line ready made.