We have an historic house in our town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fite-Fessenden_House. It belongs to the County and is maintained by a bunch of volunteers, with minimal budget.
They have an old, Doll house, probably about 100 years old.
They want me to make a table to sit this on, 40"L, 22"W, 16"H.
My wife volunteered me for this project, so I hoping to do this labor and material free to them. They'll reimburse me for wood, but I figure that will be my donation to the house.
Most of the wood in the house is Oak.
So I would like to use a finish that would not make it look like it came out of IKEA.
So I'm leaning towards using Red Oak, but again, am open to suggestions on other species if I can get a more period look with a modern finish.
I have easy access to Red and White Oak, Maple, Cherry, Maple, Popular, Cedar and Walnut.
Thanks