You may notice at Wooded, we sell our pieces with feet included, and at no extra cost. You can choose to remove them, but we certainly prefer boards with feet and think you’ll have a better experience with them. Why, you ask?

Let your wood breathe!

One of the easiest ways to end up with a board that rocks from side-to-side is a lack of airflow as your board sits on a surface — usually a kitchen countertop, and we all know how those get; wet with splashes from the sink, spills and juices from cooking. Wood, even well-sealed, acts as a thick and slow-absorbing sponge, and when part of its surface (the bottom) is absorbing liquid, and the other part is getting airflow, it will expand and contract unevenly. That unevenness creates a “warped” condition which causes that board to be uneven, giving that unsatisfying wobbling sensation as you use it.

Feet simply give the bottom of the wood a fraction of an inch above the countertop to keep the air flowing, evenly around all sides of the board, making it a lot less likely for the board to become deformed.

Wood can be moody.

Have you ever noticed the doors in your home getting easier or harder to close as the seasons progress? That’s because the wood (or wood-like material) is absorbing the humidity in the air, expanding as warmer, more humid air persists, and contracting as the seasons get colder and drier. Your wooden kitchen tools, like cutting boards, experience the same variations, which can cause (typically minor) warps and unevenness as years progress. It’s also inevitable that they directly experience moisture as you chop on them, wash them off, and well… use them!

We like boards with feet because as these natural progressions take place, they offer some buffer, with a small rubber surface that stays a lot steadier than the wood buffering these natural variations. Typically, no adjustments are needed, but if your board gets noticeably uneven, you can tweak on the screws to compress or expand the feet and counteract the natural variations of the wood over time.

About our feet.

We use simple rubber feet with elegant black screws. We use quality screws and carefully drill a small hole for each of them to keep the wood from splitting or cracking. They add about half an inch to the height of the board, typically not enough to make a major impact to the height (thickness) of the board.

Why would I want to skip the feet?

We see two reasons why you might want to miss out on the footy goodness.

First, perhaps you want your board to be “reversible”, with both sides available to use. That’s certainly possible even with the feet on the board, but you do lose the four corners where the feet are installed, reducing the usable area somewhat (depending on the size of your board). Again, we let you decide, but for most of you, we think you’ll still have plenty of inches to play with.

The other reason is perhaps the human behind the board. If you are on the petite side and want to squeeze every inch of that thick block without it getting too tall and hard to use… it might be wise to skip the feet.

Strongly recommended, but optional.

In summary, we love our feet here at Wooded. They keep the underside of our wood pieces dry and prevent swelling over time. Feet do make our boards a little thicker and you may want to spare the extra height the feet add, and the space they take up on the bottom side of the boards. If that’s you, just tick the “No Feet” box or drop us a note to skip the feet, and we’ll oblige!