advice for a newbie

Hi everyone, just signed up for the site to get some info on a new (to me) boat that I purchased yesterday. I will apologize in advance, as I am sure some of my questions/ramblings have been covered in the past It is an older 14 ft aluminum, seems to be very sound, but definitely not pretty to look at. The first thing that I need to do is to replace the seats, it looks like the previous owner installed OSB topped with a hard plastic, so out they come. The wood around the transom is sound, but will need replaced in the next couple of years (thought if I am doing the seats, I may as well do the transom as well).

What are recommendations for material to use for a) the seats and b) the transom ? I had thought of using a composite decking type of material for the seats, or perhaps a 3/4 inch plywood ? If a person uses plywood, I am assuming it should be sealed/stained ?

Thanks in advance.

I'm using exterior 3/4" ply sealed with 635 medium epoxy from U.S. Composites throughout my 1442 jon. For the transom, I joined two layers together using PL construction adhesive and then sealed it with the epoxy.

First, get the boat wet so you can figure out right off the bat what you like and don't like about it and go from there. So many folks build boats they don't really like in the end because they didn't enjoy them as they built them...

Jamie