How to Finish a Wood Countertop

Wood countertops are a beautiful addition to any kitchen and they ask more of a finish than almost any other surface in the house. They get wet constantly, they get hot pans set on them, they get scrubbed, and they hold food. Whether yours is end grain, edge grain, or live edge, the same strategy applies: use something food safe that penetrates rather than coats, and plan to maintain it rather than replace it.

Preparation: sand to 150 or 180, and stop

For live edge and edge grain countertops, sand up to 150 or 180 grit before finishing. No further.

This runs against most people's instinct, so it is worth saying why. A medium grit surface has open pores that accept oil readily. Sand finer and you burnish the surface closed, the oil cannot get in, and you end up with a finish sitting on top that looks thin and cures unevenly. On a countertop, where penetration is the entire protective mechanism, this matters more than on almost anything else.

End grain countertops are a different case. The grain orientation means you are presenting the open ends of millions of cells straight up, so an end grain top will soak up oil readily and take considerably more of it.

Choosing your finish

Two of our formulas are made for kitchen countertops. Both are food safe, easy to apply, easy to maintain, protect against moisture, enhance the look of the wood, and will never peel or crack.

BeesBlock Oil is our recommendation for nearly all countertop work. It is pure tung oil, special aged linseed oil, and pure organic beeswax. That is the entire formula, with no solvent at all, which is why it carries zero VOCs. That makes it particularly useful in a home that is already occupied and for refinishing an existing top, where the family is living around the work.

Concentrated Finishing Oil is the other good option, and it penetrates and dries slightly faster, which helps when the schedule is tight. It is pure tung oil, special aged linseed oil, citrus oil, pure organic beeswax, and pine rosin.

One thing to plan for with Concentrated: the citrus oil gives off an orange smell for the first 24 hours or so while it evaporates. It fades on its own, and ventilation during that first day is recommended. In an empty house before move-in this is a non-issue. In an occupied kitchen it is the reason we usually point people to BeesBlock instead.

Applying the finish

Once the top is sanded it is ready. No sealer, no primer, no prep beyond clean and dust free.

Use a small amount, and do not flood the surface. Spread oil across the countertop with a brush, rag, or small roller. This is the most common mistake on a large horizontal surface, where the instinct is to pour and spread. Resist it.

Wait 30 to 45 minutes while the oil goes in.

Wipe up the excess with a clean cotton terry cloth towel. Everything that has not soaked in comes off.

Second coat, either the same day or after 24 hours. Repeat the process, and be especially careful with the wipe-off this time. The wood is closer to saturated, so more finish stays on the surface, and anything left standing will harden into a sticky patch you will have to deal with later.

Feed the dry spots. If some areas drink faster than others, particularly around knots and minor defects, give them extra oil. Those spots are thirstier for a reason and they will look flat if you leave them short.

Cutting, sinks, and the two hard spots

Use a cutting board. A countertop finish is not a cutting board finish, however similar the products are. Knife work severs the surface and does it in the same places over and over. Keep a board on the counter and the top will outlast you. If you want a surface you can cut on directly, build it as a butcher block and treat it like one, and see our article on finishing cutting boards.

Around the sink is where wood countertops fail. Not because of the finish, but because of standing water in the places nobody wipes: the back edge, the seam at the sink rim, and above all the raw end grain inside the sink cutout. Oil that cutout thoroughly, including the underside edges, before the sink goes in. It is the single highest value ten minutes of the whole job and it is nearly impossible to reach afterward. Then re-oil the sink surround more often than the rest of the top, because it will always be the first area to dry out.

Maintenance

Both finishes penetrate rather than forming a film, which has two consequences.

First, there is nothing that can separate from the wood and fail. A film finish on a countertop eventually lifts, water gets underneath, and the repair is a full strip and refinish. That cannot happen here.

Second, wear shows up as a drier looking surface rather than as damage to a coating. Scratches and dings happen to the wood itself, which is honest and, over many years, correctable: you can sand the top back and start fresh if you ever want to, which is not an option with most surfaces.

The maintenance procedure is one coat of oil, and very little of it. Clean the surface, apply, wipe off the excess. The countertop comes back.

How often depends entirely on use. A busy family kitchen wants attention several times a year. A guest kitchen or a bar top might go a year or more. The counter tells you: when water stops beading and the wood starts looking dry and pale, feed it.

A note on nut allergies

Both products contain tung oil, and this question comes up. Tung comes from the seed of the tung tree, which despite the name is not botanically a tree nut, and it is unrelated to walnuts, cashews, almonds, and peanuts. Our cutting board article covers this in more detail.

• Planning a countertop, or reviving one that has gone dry? Call us at 541-844-8748 or write info@heritagenaturalfinishes.com. We are glad to send a sample so you can test on an offcut of your own stock.

 

• This article grew out of an earlier version written by one of our customer support techs, Ziggy Liolia. The core of the method is his: stop sanding at 150 or 180 so the pores stay open, use a small amount rather than flooding the surface, wait, and wipe off every bit that has not soaked in.