Wooden worktops in kitchen, or not?

[JellicleCat]

We are planning to renew our kitchen worktops. Units are fine, 10 years old but still look good.

Went to look at worktops today and favourite so far is solid wood. However we are not the most careful or tidy of households and I am a bit concerned about how they will stand up to wear and tear. Are they high maintenance? Or will they put up with a certain amount of abuse?

I love mine - cheap Ikea. I used their oil, which sucked, and I've since sloshed a load of vegetable oil around the sink after a quick repair (hot pan, stupid lodger) which seems to be just as useful as Ikea oil if not more so. No black marks, but I did have to sand back after said hot pan incident. Took about fifteen minutes including sloshing on vegetable oil. Am getting osmo oil to do the whole sweep (we have wraparound counters from the floor up so it's a lot of worktop), but not until we've finished our renovations, as I want to do a quick whizz over with the hand sander in a couple of places before slapping on the good stuff.

I recently replaced mine with laminate.

The old ones had been put in by the previous owners and had been covered with a thin layer of varnish (rather than being oiled), which of course had got scratched and cracked, but to re-varnish I would have needed to sand everything back and not use the kitchen for several days while the layers of varnish dried. It was also badly cracked or not properly sealed around the sink, so water was getting into the wood and we got horrible black rotten bits.

I can see that wood looks nice if it's properly fitted and oiled and looked after, but laminate is much less stress with two teen/preteen DCs using the kitchen.

It seems wooden work tops are a bit of a marmite thing.

One more question. We currently have an inset sink (if that is the right term) which has a little bit of worktop along the back (about an inch and a half wide). This area is a pain to clean with laminate and can get very wet. So how would we cope with this with a wooden worktop, or do I need a different style of sink? And no, I don't want a Belfast sink, just a bog standard stainless one.

Ours are ruined behind the sink where the taps are, we may be able to cover it up by taking out the taps and putting a new block of wood over the damaged bit then sinking the tap back in.

I spent the first couple of weeks reminding my DH not to splash or leave water on them but then he started to accuse me of nagging so I stopped. Work top is now fucked..

I slosh oil behind my taps quite often, just vegetable oil and wipe it over with a cloth. Seems to help.

I think you're more likely to have water penetration issues with that sort of sink where its more difficult to dry at the join. Wooden worktops are easier to look after with butler style sinks.

I also have the lovely and cheap ikea beech, its sort of butchers block style. We did oil 2x yearly for the first two years with osmo but haven't oiled for a year now. It looks so lovely and we get lots of compliments.

I haven't got any water damage as I watch my DH and DC like a hawk, same when we have guests!

I tend to leave a small kitchen towel or a wad of paper towel behind the tap area, which I have to say is annoying and looks a bit messy.

I wouldnt get wood again, Id get some sort of cheaper version of a granite or a composite where I could splosh and spill without worrying that id missed a bit.

We have wood (another vote for Osmo) but have a stainless steel sink with draining boards either side, so basically a stainless steel section of bench on either side of the sink, which makes life a bit easier as fewer worries about water.

Haven't had any problems with heat/spatter/anything on the rest of it.

The marks we have had on ours (from Ikea) have been when we've put down metal tins/biscuit barrels without realising there were slightly wet on the bottom and have had rusty ring marks which have been impossible to remove. So avoid metal containers and you'll be fine!

Thanks everyone. Lots to think about, including do we really want wood. As we are replacing existing worktop it needs to be the same thickness which seems to rule out a lot of the composites.

Solid bamboo in our kitchen. Love it. We always use a chopping board and I wouldn't have taps that go straight in to the wood, but other than that we're not precious with cleaning/ water etc.. and it still looks fab. I do make sure I give it an oil every few months. Takes 20 mins.

The two people I know who recently had wood worktops installed ruined them within days - one with a hot pan, and one with a bottle of cleaning fluid (left an indelible ring). They inevitably go black all around the sink and drainer. Just not practical imho.

But they are practical because you can sand out the problem. All you need is a bit of sand paper, rub away and then re-oil, job done.

We have lots of scratches on our wooden worktops at the moment because of an "incident" with DS2 and a pair of rugby boots but they can be sanded out so easily that its not an issue.

I have literally never, in my entire life, put a hot pan down on any kind of worktop. I have no idea how people manage to 'ruin' worktops by doing so. And I always use a chopping board. Whatever my worktop was made out of, I'd use a chopping board.

We're not at all precious about our wooden worktop and we've had no problems.

I have wooden worktops (ikea) in my rented house. I've never had them before and in fact never spent any time thinking about kitchen work surfaces until now. I would never choose wood myself after this, it just seems wholly impractical. We have an island in the kitchen with a round sink in it. We also have a dishwasher.. But water from the sink (maybe it's just a crap sink/tap) goes everywhere, and consequently around the tap the wood has just gone really manky.

We have oak worktops cpated in osmo. Noproblems at all, any spillages sit top of the osmo- nothing soaks in at all.

We have wood with osmo too. Although the osmo seems a bit patchy so i do need to top it up very carefully i think. It doesn't bead water as well as the wooden table with wax on. But i am 100% convinced Osmo will do the job.

I would have wood, with granite or another material around the sunk area. Or a careful sink design.

I put one in about 3 years ago and I hate it. I wish I hadn't bothered.

I'd even prefer laminate and I'm so not a laminate kind of gal.

IMO the only good useful wooden surface in a kitchen is a block that you chop on and it gets scratched and cut all the time and you don't worry about it.

Having wood that you want to stay looking perfect is just daft, well I think so. I like things to look better for being used, not stuff you have to tiptoe around.

Yes you need a couple of decent coats of osmo as the first one sort of soaks in a bit.

My mum has wood. She's incredibly careful about looking after it and she has butchers blocks everywhere but after 3 yrs it's all black around her sink

I wanted wood but this totally influenced our choice when we did our kitchen a few months ago so we chose laminate and its just so easy! You can actually get some classy looking laminate now - might be worth taking a look at the options before you make a definite decision..

We've had solid oak for 3 years and have now moved house. We won't be choosing them again as the dc are getting older and will be using the kitchen more!!!! They look good still but have had to sandpaper out a few incidents

We have Ikea oak worktops (and have had Ikea birch in the last two houses). They are great. OH sands them once a year and we re-oil them.

I really don't get the black round the sink thing. 3 houses with wooden worktops and it's never been an issue.

This time we have the big Ikea double ceramic sink, which goes all the way to the wall at the back, but before that we had stainless steel.