Wood kitchen worktops. Any advice?

[MeMeMeow85]

We’ve just moved into a new house and the vendor chose wooden worktops for the kitchen.

Will change them asap (as part of renovations), but realistically I will be stuck with the wood till early next year.

Any advice please on how to keep the worktops clean? It seems really unhygienic compared to marble/stone. Also, the wood is getting too wet when I’m leaving dishes to dry and cleaning it etc

Wood work tops are fine as long as they are well maintained.

Sand them back with some 180 sandpaper and then re oil with danish oil, 2-3 coats applied with a soft cloth. This realisitically needs to be done every 6 months, but doesn't take long (a coupe of hours) after the first time.

Once well treated they are hygienic as the oil creates a barrier. Clean with any normal worktop/kitchen cleaner. As for leaving dishes to dry, unfortunately, they just wont cope well with pooled water sat for a long time, so really you will just need to dry up rather then leave them to dry.

Sand back with 180 grit.
Use osmo polyx oil. It goes hard inside the wood, and forms a better barrier then normal oils.

Do this once a year on most, twice round the sink. You need the water to bead up on top of the worktop.

Use a gentle surface cleanser, nothing too harsh. Waitrose Eco range grapefruit and eucalyptus is my favourite.

We also inherited wood worktops, we did the sand down and reoil thing when we first moved in and they looked amazing but it took several evenings (oil needs to dry, sand again, oil again etc) and the mess was unbelievable- we have an open plan house and it was coated with dust. I haven’t been able to face doing it since we actually moved in with all our stuff (2.5 years).
You can’t leave wet stuff on them, fortunately we have a drainer as part of the sink, anything that does have to go on the worktop gets put on a doubled up layer of tea towel. They will also mark if you put something too hot on them and you need to wipe up spills immediately or they will stain - especially curry. Ours is looking really tatty now but I’m heavily pregnant and frankly the chances of us doing the sanding and reoiling that it needs in the next two years are precisely nil.

We have fitted oak worktops.
Lightly sanded them then at least three thin coats of Danish oil. We put each coat on just before bed and it was dry the next morning.

They have been in 18 months. The only thing that has marked them is when a visitor numpty put a red hot pan down and burnt a ring. Bit of sanding and more oil and it's gone.

Nothing else has marked it -beetroot, red wine, oil, water just stands on top.

We use the ikea oil for their wooden work surfaces, it's been brilliant. I did them several times in the first few months then do them once a year.

We use glass work surface savers in areas that we use regularly (where the kettle is, by the bread board..). We wipe up splashes immediately with tissue and put pans down on trivets. I don't find them hard work at all.

I’m guessing that all the folks who sand regularly have a tidier kitchen than me and one where they can close the door to the rest of the house and seal it against dust!

I've never had to sand mine yet in 7 years, there's not a mark on them so far.

I hated my inherited wood worktops - but sanding and osmo oil made them a thing of beauty

We have grooves cut into the wood in the draining board area (Belfast sink) but I use a microfibre mat instead to drain things on. Few £s in tkmaxx

We wipe any water splashes as they happen

Method kitchen cleaner or antibacterial spray daily

Open plan here so initial sand was messy but after that I've just been re-oiling yearly

Mine have been on for 8 years and are pristine, never re-sanded or oiled, but nothing wet or hot ever touches the. It rakes discipline but can be done, and they are lovely