Timber vs stone benchtops: an honest comparison from a timber workshop

We make timber benchtops, so you'd expect us to tell you timber wins. Here's the more useful version: an honest comparison, including the places stone genuinely does the better job.

Cost: closer than most people expect

Both are four-figure surfaces for a typical kitchen. Stone quotes usually carry templating and installation on top, while a timber benchtop from us is priced live - smaller pieces start under $1,000 incl. GST and the benchtop configurator gives you an exact number for your dimensions in about a minute. For most kitchens the two end up in the same neighbourhood, so the decision is really about how you want to live with the kitchen, not the invoice.

Where stone genuinely wins

Fair's fair. You can put a hot pot straight onto stone and it won't care. It shrugs off knife slips. If you want a surface that ignores everything you do to it, engineered stone is honestly the right call.

Where timber wins

Warmth, first. A kitchen with a solid timber top in West Coast Rimu or Northland Tōtara feels different the moment you walk in - it's the difference between a surface and a piece of furniture.

Second, repairability. Stone is durable until the day it chips or cracks, and then it's a specialist repair that rarely vanishes completely. An oiled timber top is the opposite: marks sand out, the finish renews, and the surface actually improves with a decade of use. We cover the routine in our timber care guide - it's shorter than you'd think.

Third, the story. Our timber is NZ native, named by forest and supplier, milled under MPI sustainable forest management plans, and a native tree is planted for every item sold. A slab of engineered stone is quartz dust and resin from a factory. Both are honest materials - they're just very different stories to live with.

The maintenance question, honestly

Stone: wipe it, forget it. Timber: wipe it, dry it, oil it once or twice a year. That's the real difference - about 40 minutes a year. If that 40 minutes sounds like a chore, choose stone with a clear conscience. If it sounds like looking after something you like, timber will reward you for decades.

Choosing your timber

If you land on timber, the species choice is the fun part - our guide to Rimu vs Tōtara benchtops walks through it, and the materials page covers where each timber comes from. Or skip straight to ordering samples and let your kitchen decide.

Custom benchtops are made in Christchurch and delivered NZ-wide. Production usually takes 4–8 weeks from when your deposit is paid, depending on whether you choose raw or finished timber. Delivery time is additional. Talk to us if your project has a wrinkle the configurator can't answer.