Hi have trying to do this for a number of years The best has been live trees. Though "dead Bougainvilles worked fantastic!! The wood rotted away after 3 years lol. Hard woods that make good driftwood work but find two problems Very hard woods such as Iron, mahoigany or rosewwod hold up but epiphytes fail to root properly. Even have trouble with Broms which will root to you if you hold still lol I'm now trying some limbs made of PVC pipe with various materials glued to the outside.. seems fair so far but I have no artistic ability at all. looks a lot like various materials glued to PVC. Trying again with flexible PVC which looks a lot more like a limb .Added a waterline through the inside to make it more useful. Of course this approach as the added advantage that it can be any size or shape as well as CHEAP lol. Good luck with whatever you decide. gary

Yep, definitely oil finish. Can't see any scrapes, though. Reclaimed boards from a previous project? Seems like it.

I'm not an expert on wood but maybe birch or maple stained??? Whatever it is, it's very pretty.

Natural hickory with no stain. But it doesn’t matter what some picture of someone else’s house uses. What matters is how something like that gets 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘦𝘥 to relate to the actual space of 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 home. Not someone else’s home. If you have no other wood like that in your home, and 8’ ceilings, in a simple bungalow, then none of that fancy will ever look likes it belongs in that home.