My parents' old house had a wonderful oak front staircase that my six siblings and I used to race up and down, taking them two or three at a time, with only a casual hold on the railing. I don't know how we managed to never slip or fall. Now, the timber backstairs were steep, and had narrow treads and were poorly lit. We NEVER ran up or down them, but held tightly to the railing and hoped to heck we managed to stay upright. As an adult, my previous home had carpeted stairs, which I slipped on (wearing socks) and fell down twice, though thankfully I was closer to the bottom than the top. My current home has timber stairs with three narrow stainless steel runners stood on edge and inset horizontally across the front of each tread (this is supposed to help reduce risk of slips). I doubt I will get over the anxiety of taking another tumble, so I never go down them wearing socks, and if barefoot, I hold onto the railing for dear life and take it nice and slow. So far so good.

Hello Stella In the flooring industry this type of flooring was called a floating floor, because it sits on an underlay. Now it is called an engineered floor (and stops the first question being about the noise underfoot).... but the noise remains depending on the level of the floor and the type of underlay. Engineered floors have a number of layers of timber/ply at right angles to allow the expansion/contraction of the grain to be controlled. The top layer is the prefinished or raw timber species that you want with the other layers in various ply. There are cheaper alternatives again that have particle board (chipboard) or mdf backing with a laminate printed pattern. These are, in my humble opinion not worth opening the box. A solid timber floor can be laid a multitude of ways. Over concrete, I waterproof the slab, level it and glue and nail a plywood sheet. The timber is then laid over it, sanded and flooded (gaps filled) then sealed with a finish being either oil or water/oil based polyurethane. It can also be stained before sealing. With the engineered floors, they come from all over the world. Some are made in China, some are made in Indonesia, some are made in Europe and so on. A major supplier to a lot of the flooring companies is a company called Premium Floors. They supply products to eg carpet shops inc Quick-step and have done for many many years. Their website is worth a look before you go out into retail outlets. As to your original question, when I built my first family home I installed a readyflor (premium floors as it happened) floating floor. The floor withstood some almighty parties (before kids) and still looks amazing 18 years later (it hasn't been sanded at all). Today, I only install solid timber floors in our work purely because of personal preference and the type of renovations we are doing, and when requested by a client we have sourced from Europe. Cheers

This is my bench top that I made and oiled. I used livos oil as I do with most things but I would consider Organoil hard burnishing oil as well, as I believe it may deal with the humidity being a northern nsw product. Never use polyurethane on anything is my best advise. Call prep products in Sydney for any info on it, they are really helpful and can give you the maintenance instructions. I'd probably just use their woodwipe occasionally to keep it looking good and wearing in to look better in time. Unlike poly which will only deteriorate and with oil you just maintain in situ.

Look for Wenge Laminex, you can use it vertical or horizontal, we did this years ago with galley kitchen cabinets, it comes in several timber looks https://receptioncountersaustralia.com/products/new-york-oak-panelled-counter?variant=32050645073992&currency=AUD&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&utm_campaign=gs-2020-04-30&utm_source=google&utm_medium=smart_campaign&gclid=Cj0KCQiAkuP9BRCkARIsAKGLE8XrtyO3xL06WQVJFKP3yuhFgeuxwgHWMS9SG8wlEPhVyktXFAwDwrsaAqlTEALw_wcB