Reply by KevinBlair

Thanks everyone.

My wife likes the look of natural birch. We have an island from IKEA that is mostly birch with melamine doors that she likes.

There isn’t a particular reason for making them out of plywood other than convenience and I thought they would be stronger than hard wood. I can get the baltic birch at a reasonable price and the 5’x5’ dimension makes it easy to transport home. I may have to use mail order to get birch hardwood.