Hi folks, I own a major copper fabrication company - can't say which one, of course. We build hundreds of copper hoods, sinks, & countertops. We do all of the different finishes on copper - mirror polish, bright satin, light french brown, medium french brown, and on and on. I'm with suds about the most attractive finish - just well maintained bare copper... BUT - it's a real hassle to maintain. We'll do bare when folks insist, but I just don't recommend it. So based on customer feedback - we recommend hot process french brown patina, lacquered and waxed. We have gotten get consistent rave reviews about it from o,ur customers and no complaints. It's great looking right from the start, and easy to maintain, especially on hoods, and positively doesn't show fingerprints. Less durable on sinks, but still the best choice, my opinion. Very good on copper countertops as well. The main thing is avoid contact with acidic substances, and wax it. And about the green - only happens outdoors - won't happen indoors. The way I see it, you start out looking good with the patina, and as it wears you work down to bare copper, and it looks good the whole way. If you start bare, you fight with the fingerprints forever almost until the color eventually stabilizes. Looks real bad unless you really stay on it and put in that polishing time. And for sure, don't lacquer it if you're going to leave it bare. Very bad idea - it'll chip and tarnish where it chips and you'll have a very difficult-to-fix mess. So that's a highly opinionated point of view coming from a guy who's not keen on polishing copper every week. Hope this helps!

On the kitchen forum, allison0704 fabricated a hood out of copper sheeting. See the link below for a picture. Here is a link that might be useful: allison's copper hood

Hi Amanda! I was just wondering how your kitchen was going and here you are. There are so many different colors of copper that it's hard to answer your specific question, but in general I think it will all be fine together. There's shiny copper penny, various oxidation patinas that range from a dark reddish brown to pale verdigris green, annealed colors in various hues, etc. But in general most should look find with white or cherry, though they'll pop more against the white and blend more with the cherry because of the contrast in values (light/dark). Also ORB should be fine with most coppers--bronze gets it's color from copper. As to how it'll look with stainless, it depends. Stainless also has a color range, though it's narrow. I think a copper hood and ORB knobs could look very good with stainless. ...But I think pulls might tip the balance. You'll have to figure out how you like your specific hood and knobs and SS together. It has the potential to be fantastic. Congrats on the find! JC

Just replacing the hood. I’ll just take a picture and upload instead of trying to figure out how to share my idea book