It is wood, basically plywood. Finish it just like you would solid wood. Lots of different wood finishes available from not very durable to extremely tough, slow process to get done to rather quickly. I switched to quick and tough many years ago. Noremf, a passed on member, had a post about a misted lacquer finish and it is one of the easiest to do, results in one of the toughest, and also one of the easiest to repair if dinged. I don;t know if his posts survived the format change or not.