Do you have an older wooden worktop?

[Eggless]

I'm putting a new kitchen into open plan living space, so I really want it to look cosy and warm rather than 'clean' and clinical.

Wood is therefore the obvious choice for worktop, but I'm concerned about the longevity of it. I am really happy for it to look used, like knife marks, dings, etc, but worried about major damage from water.

But I can't find any worktops that look cosy apart from wood. It also needs to not streak or need polishing or anything. And not make loud noises when you put things on it. Clanging in the kitchen is not cool in a shared living space!

Is wood/engineered wood the only option that fulfills my needs?

We have walnut and seal with osmo oil about once per year. Just wipe up water as soon as you can (within reason) and don't put hot pans down, it's what trivets are for, surely?

I've only known two other people who had and hated wood countertops and they never oiled or maintained, so of course it looked like crap after years of abuse.

We are in the middle of having our kitchen fitted and at the very last minute changed from compact laminate to wood.

We researched and found that iroko is often suggested as it’s got a high oil content which means it’s more water resistant than other woods.

Our worktops arrived 2 days ago and oh my lord, they’re beautiful. I couldn’t find anything else I remotely liked as much so I’m willing to do the oiling etc.

Also worth mentioning that wood worktops are the only surface you can easily repair yourself. If you do get a black mark or a scorch mark, you can just sand it back and re-oil. I think as long as you catch it early, it’s not really an issue.

Ask me again in 12months and I’ll tell you whether it was a good decision 😂😂😂

We had wooden worktops in our old house and have them again here. Love them. Feel warm and homely, easy to maintain. Lots of marks fade as the wood sort of repairs itself and the ones that don’t you can sand and oil. Just wipe up liquid spills promptly.

This just shows it really is personal taste. This is how mine looked before we had replaced and i couldn’t stand it. It never looked cleaner enough to me!

My oak worktops are 20 years old and look like new, and I have taps set in them. It's all down to whether you are prepared to look after them.

pic!

Ours is about 8 years old and still looks good. We aren't particularly careful with it. Try to dry it off round the sink but we have kids who use the sink and wash up and are hopeless. It seems fine. There are some marks but nothing that looks bad.

It looks great after aight resanding and oiling. It is oak and the whole thing (probably 2 m of work too plus a wide breakfast peninsula was around £500 at the time so not expensive compared to other. Ice work tops if it needed replacing somewhere down the line.

I have this in my kitchen https://www.worktop-express.co.uk/sherwood-oak-luxury-laminate-worktops/
I was going to have wood but saw this in the showroom. It looks like wood but without the upkeep. You can of course tell from the edges that it isn't wood so it depends if that matters to you.

Thank you everyone. I think you're confirming wood is the way to go for cosiness (especially the cats warming their feet)!
We wouldn't set taps into it, and would wipe up spills within a few minutes so hopefully it will be okay.

We've had oak worktops for 17 years now and they still look great. Before they were fitted I did 5 layers of danish oil sanding between each layer, and since then they've been resanded and oiled about once a year (it takes a couple of hours and then you have to leave them to dry overnight).

There are a couple of small marks which I haven't been able to remove - one is from someone dropping one of those birthday cake sparklers which left a small, deep burn mark. The other is from a glass vase being dropped which has left a small dent, but I'm sure that laminate would have been damaged by these accidents too.

We have taps set in to the work top and there is a slight discolouring around the base of the tap but it's barely noticable. We do treat them with care - alway use trivets for hot pans and never let water sit on the wood, but I would definitely have them again should we move house.

I have had one for 15 years. Never again. Marked and even with regular oiling it never looks good.