Wren kitchens (or another...)

[WoodenTricycle]

Just starting to think about a new kitchen (have planning approval but work unlikely to start until next year).

Architect said to start thinking about kitchens so trotted off to a Wren showroom which is local to us. A few people I trust are going with Wren so I thought we'd start with them.

I like the designs, slightly hard sell which puts me off but seem to know what they are talking about....design appointment booked in for next week.

However their reviews are mixed to say the least. Mumsnet reviews are pretty bad from about 4 years ago, has anyone used them more recently?

There is a lot of love for DIY kitchens. Is it worth taking a trip to their showroom? We'd have to make a weekend of it and take the children. Might be worth it though especially as we've got time on our side.

We're just outside Birmingham, so have all the usual retailers. What about Wickes?

Any suggestions appreciated.

IME it is much cheaper to find a local firm. You pay a lot more for kitchen companies.
Ask around and post on your local Next Door site for recommendations.

DIY Kitchens is fab. We live down south and never visited the showroom I just went on other people’s reviews and am so happy we did It. Was a good few thousand cheaper than Howdens. I planned the kitchen myself on scrap paper, ordered exactly the right amount of stuff and all came perfectly 2 years on and no issues. Only thing I would mention is pay for the premium delivery where they bring it in the house, I didn’t and husband wasn’t best pleased 😜

I had a kitchen from Wren about 3 years ago and had no problems

If you use Benchmarx, make sure you keep track of what they've actually supplied and all the delivery notes. They overcharged me by £1500, one of the items being a Neff pyrotlytic oven. (Benchmarx did eventually pay it back)

Avoid Wren like the plague. They are masters of social media manipulation; anything negative is deleted from their feeds and posters blocked. Negative Trustpilot reviews get reported for defamation so are also often deleted. Their legal teams are very heavy handed, and have caused at least 3 Facebook groups to be closed with jumped up legal treats. Customer service is virtually non-existent.
Check out the Which? report for an unbiased review.

we looked around different companies and are going with DIY we are lucky the showroom in Yorkshire is within a car drive from us and I was seriously impressed with the quality of all of their kitchens the hard bit was picking which one to go for and £2000 cheaper than wickes

We like our wren kitchen, and the saleswoman could not have been more helpful. We were organising our kitchen from overseas for our self build and she was the only place I called who would do the vast majority of the design work remotely - I.e by email/phone. Every other place I called refused to engage unless I visited. 2 years later the kitchen is great and we have orders the odd extra (cutlery trays and the like) - the sales lady still remembers us by first names and asks after the kids, one of whom wasn’t born when we got it fitted. The delivery men were the most flexible and polite of everyone we came across when building a whole house.

My sister is currently awaiting her wren kitchen. It was supposed to be in for Christmas but most of it arrived damaged, including appliances. The replacements also arrived damaged or incorrect. Customer service has been shocking as they don't even have dates for January. She has been washing up dishes in the bath, living off microwave food etc since November already

A friend of mine recently used Wren. Her kitchen was fitted in the summer and they are still sorting out the many, many issues. She is going to have to host Christmas without a dining room as the contents of her kitchen cupboards are still unable to be put back in. Customer service was shocking.

DIY kitchens are fabulous quality I'm really happy with mine

Had a Wren kitchen 2 years ago. Whilst I like the finished product, the whole experience was appalling. Incompetence galore and would NEVER recommend them to anyone. They promised to pay for repairs to parts of our house that were damaged (because of them)... and then refused once we'd settled the bill. Their fitters refused to give us back our key for quite a while and seemed surprised we wanted it back (a month after they'd finished fitting which was a month after they should have finished). The designer fit a range cooker on our plan that didn't have enough space to open in our kitchen... which resulted in our stairway being badly damaged (kitchen on 1st floor) and us having to order one separately and then they wouldn't honour the discount agreed in the contract etc. It was just a nightmare. Don't do it!

We used Benchmarx recently. Good overall except they let themselves down a little with small details at the end like when we bought two sinks but they didn't think to recommend how to connect the overflow for each sink as usually people only buy one: the wrong screws for some handles and square under lights instead of the round we ordered. So nothing life changing but still a little annoying.

Disclaimer: I work for an independent regional kitchen retailer in the North East and have been in the industry for 20+ years.

Wren is universally considered to be the worst "big" company to purchase from. Their product is substandard and overpriced (in comparison to competitors) and their customer service is dire.

They have gorgeous showrooms and are very good at bedazzling potential customers then pressuring them into signing away a deposit.

Wickes is by far the better company, both in quality and in service, however like most "Supply & Fit on finance" companies, they're wildly overpriced for the product they offer.

DIY Kitchens offer a semi-decent product at a decent price, but be sure to look into the small print:

£75 delivery charge for delivery on a 2 day window and you have to offload the kitchen yourself.
£150 delivery charge for a 2-man ground-floor delivery on a 2 day window.
£250 delivery charge for a 2-man ground-floor delivery if you want to choose your date.
No cancellation once the order is in production.
No returns on cabinets/painted doors/accessories,
25% restocking charge on "allowable" returns after 10 days,
You pay carriage + have liability for transit damage,
No paint matching after 1 month.

Their painting methods are susceptible to whisper lines and cracking along the joints per their own terms and conditions, and they charge for "touch up pots".

Be sure that you're ordering exactly what you need (and nothing that you don't) and have factored the additional costs of delivery / touch up pots (you can only get them in an identical colour as your doors/etc within 1 month after which they dispose of your paint batch)

Smart money says go to an independent in your local area and find a reputable fitter. If you don't have the cash to pay for the project without finance; take out a low interest bank loan.

The savings on the kitchen price will more than offset the interest that you'll be charged on a bank loan over 5 years.

We went with DIY Kitchens after seeing all the positive feedback on Mumsnet and we have no regrets! The process of delivering online was straightforward and the quality of the units is really impressive - much more solid that B&Q or Wren. Our fitter hadn't heard of them before and thought they were so good he now recommends them. But yes, do as Oct18mummy suggests and book the premium delivery so they bring the units into your house rather than leave kerbside - because the carcasses are delivered already assembled they're v.v.v.heavy!

Those of you who had either Hacker kitchens or DIY kitchens in, may I ask how you fitted them? And roughly what percentage of the kitchen price the fitting cost you?
Thank you so much :)

BookishKitten We had ours fitted by someone our builder worked with – the fitting fee was part of the overall cost of a kitchen renovation so I don't have a precise cost, sorry!

we had a wren kitchen in a few months ago, half of it arrived damaged, though credit to them they arranged replacements pretty quick.

In hindsight I think they were quite expensive, and we had issues with the showroom guy who added in all sorts of extras I didn't want and then denied it. Also would only let us book an appt with him, nobody else to make the changes, we waited an hour whilst he was with a walk in and then we were miraculously allowed to see someone else to make the changes.

Cant comment on fitting as we had someone independent do it.

I don't think the quality is as amazing as they make out, I wouldn't use them again.

We're just having our kitchen fitted now. It was handmade by a local joiner and is fantastic quality and cheaper than a wren kitchen would have been. He said that wren kitchens are some of the worst quality and that a basic kitchen from somewhere like wicks would be much better. We've also used DIY kitchens in the past and our kitchen fitter was very impressed with the quality for the price.

We used DIY Kitchens and were very happy with the quality of the kitchen and much cheaper than the prices we had from Magnet.

@BookishKitten, we paid £7k for our kitchen (not including worktops) and then paid a carpenter for fitting, he charged us about £1000 and said it was really easy to fit.

If I had another kitchen they would be my go to choice, I was very impressed with all the different options of units and it is hugely helpful to have so many different sized units.

We were having a build done with new kitchen and utility. Went to Wrens and they were bloody awful. Design service was dreadful although the quality of the fittings looked ok. They wouldn't let us take any of the pictures or plans away though which was frustrating.

Went to DIY Kitchens then. They re travelling distance for us. They were brilliant. Helped with the design we brought and worked out what was required. In the showroom (which is great) they have examples of cabinets from the major suppliers, ie Wrens, magnet etc and explain why theirs are best. I would agree they were the best.

My builder who is also a joiner was fitting them was amazed at the quality. They were fully built and just had to be put in place and he said he loved them.

There were some bits missing though but when I started moaning the builders workmen said all kitchens come with stuff missing and it took a few days to get sorted.

The final result is just brilliant. We are delighted. Builder was so pleased he either uses them or advises clients to use them

I have seen some negative reviews of them since. Seems connected to a machine. I do know a couple of people who have recently used them and had a good experience of them

I also know someone who used Wrens and wasn't such a good experience

I would look to visit the showroom but come with a design already drafted out

DIY kitchens is definitely worth a visit, but from where you are I’d just do it in a day. I’ve done it twice from here (near Reading) in a day. Plus I’d try to get someone to have the kids so you can look, talk & think without ‘mummy’ every 5 minutes!

I’m 98% sure I’ll get mine from them.

I like the look of Wren kitchens and the Sales Service seems fine, but the after sales service...means I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole!! I’m glad it worked out for a PP, but it hasn’t fit thousands of other and as someone said, they’re very good at getting negative feedback removed!! Their Representative who came on here did them no favours either!! At your own peril.

DIY is far better than B&Q , wicks/magnet, Howdens Benchmarx etc.

As for local companies, I can’t find one at anything close to a reasonable price & they either do ‘handmade’ bespoke at £££ or buy them in from places you can go direct to anyway 🤷🏻‍♀️

DIY had a few issues with a new machine last year, but it’s all ok now - so bear that in mind when reading reviews.

I don’t work for them, but I think I might start asking for commission as I’m always singing their praises! 🤣

One of my staff booked a Wren kitchen. It should have been ready and finished for Christmas 2018. In fact it wasn't finally properly installed and finished until this August. Whole saga took over 18 months. They also sent a tradesman who was incredibly foul mouthed, and refused to replace him when she complained about his swearing, anti-female and racist comments not just in her presence but in her nine year old daughter's too. All attempts to make public her complaints were blocked.