a new table

I'm starting to look at different kinds of designs for a large work table to do photo matting etc on. Chloe is steadfastly opposed to the use of some of the IMO beautiful birch and bamboo plywoods that are now available, so I'm looking at solid hardwoods. When I was in San Diego, I built several pieces of furniture out of poplar, which was the only kind of hardwood that I could afford at the time. For this new table, I'm considering something extra cool like Zebrawood. However, I'm also thinking that a moe eco-friendly approach would be to try to get my hands on scraps of reclaimed exoic hardwoods. The problem is that most of the places that sell them are pretty hoity toity.