1st ever kitchen renovation: B&Q or Wren?

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Unsure of what would be best here, would like some advice/input from those more experienced.

My kitchen is a medium sized room about 300 x 350cm. I've gotten 3 quotes from 3 separate places, which don't include fitting price (I've got my own fitter.)

Wren: £6500, not inc. the fridge freezer, flooring, tiles or washer.

B&Q: £6100, inc. everything except the floor.

Magnet: £9500, including everything.

Obviously Magnet is an OTT price, so it's between B&Q and Wren.

Thing is, while B&Q gave the better price, I prefer the design & overall operation from Wren - my gut is telling me to go with them, despite them being pricier. Which is unlike me, as I'm usually all about the savings.

Some extra details: Wren's would have been more, but they have a few sale items, so that brought the price down considerably.

Wren also priced it for the pre-built cabinets (not flat-packed), while B&Q only do flat-pack. Apparently this will save on fitting.

My fitter also suggested I use his card at Wren to get trade price - not sure if the sales mentioned above will be applied if I do though.

I'm also not above getting some appliances and the like secondhand or from wholesalers. As they're going to be integrated appliances, however, I'm not sure how possible this will be.

Any advice would be gratefully received!!

Look at DIY Kitchens. Really good quality and excellent price - they come assembled, too, which cuts down on installation time. I have put in a wren kitchen and DIY and both are good quality and lasted well.

I've had a couple of B&Q kitchens (different houses) and they've been fine, if that helps! But I'm inclined to say choose the one you really like - you'll keep it longer and that's going to save you more in the long run.

Appliances are a standard size, so I think they can be integrated easily enough (I mean, obviously they can be replaced if they break, so it's not like you have to have the original ones for the whole life of the kitchen) - I think you need to buy specific "integrated" versions though (which is easy enough). But check with your fitter, he'll know.

I was also going to recommend DIY Kitchens. We have just had a kitchen fitted by them and it looks great. Really good choice of units and pull-outs in different sizes too. They were about half the price of Magnet for better quality in our case (solid wood from DIY vs MDF from Magnet).

They have a very helpful Facebook page and will also price match any plans you’ve had drawn up, if you’re not confident planning it yourself (or get a designer who knows DIY Kitchens to do it for around £300 max).

Do you have a builder ? Howdens has always been cheapest for us.

Wren added in a load of trim pieces and panels that we didn't want or couldn't use in their design, by the time we weeded them out the price came down quite a lot. If you have a fitter I would get him to look at the Wren quote to see if you can trim it back. We went for a glossy cream look which makes the kitchen much brighter than the old wood cupboards.

Not Wren.

Do you have a Benchmarx locally, couldn't fault them.

We went to get quotes from both B&Q and Wren. The salesman at B&Q lost interest in us when we told him it was a small kitchen in a small 3-bed terrace. He arranged an appointment to come round to measure, and never turned up. We rearranged it, and he rang to say he couldn't come. We rang back and he was 'unavailable'. So we went with Wren, and they were very good.

My son chose Wren..big mistake..

Sounds decisive. What happened?

I do. Do they do the design? Trying to do my own with DIY Kitchens online and I'm realising I really need help with that side of it! Don't know how to add appliances, handles and the rest on it.

Take the wren design you prefer to B&Q and ask them to replicate it?

Wren quoted us almost twice the price of B and Q - many years ago. We went with B&Q and had no regrets. Great service. A friend recently put a deposit down with Wren and the fitters cancelled three times on her over a period of two months.She was worried what would happen if there was a problem after it had been fitted if they wouldn’t even turn up to start the job, so cancelled the order and got the refund back.

B&q have their event in jan so will be plenty of discounts

DH has just used Wren for a flat he was renovating for his DS. Nice design but I wouldn't recommend them or use them again. Really laborious and convoluted process. Every bit is subcontracted. For example one firm came and dismantled the old kitchen. But left it in a pile to be collected by yet another contractor. We had to dispose of defunct oven/hob/dishwasher ourselves as they don't do that Then the kitchen was delivered. Some parts were missed but this wasn't picked up until the kitchen was fitted. Some bits were damaged in transit. There were lots of delays as contractors to fit the kitchen either declined, were ruled out because they didn't have the right insurance, or were dropped by Wren for poor work. The fitter who actually came was great, but he was fed up and this was the last kitchen he was fitting for them. Some of the second fit work hasn't been done properly either. We're having to get in more electricians to sort it out as it's tripping the ventilation system.
They have actually offered DH compensation after he complained as they have done such a crap job!

I wouldn't use either Wrens or B&Q - Howdens for that price bracket. DIY are ok too if you are ok with doing everything yourself.

IKEA kitchen every time. Tried Homebase and B&q both were crap. Close relation of mine worked for wren and I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole!

Wren subcontract the fitting, so it entirely depends on how good your local ones are. Mine did a neat job, and the Wren designer was excellent.
He came to the house, took meticulous measurements, produced a computer simulation of the proposed kitchen, then tore it all up and started again without a murmur of protest when I changed my mind on the layout!
My only quibble was the plumbing for the dishwasher- I had to get my own plumber to reroute the outlet pipe so the machine could fit under the worktop without sticking out at the front, the Wren fitters couldn’t do it. (To be fair, they’re fitters, not plumbers.)

Ask your builder if he has a Magnet Trade account.
We got quotes from everywhere for our kitchen and preferred the design and quality of Magnet, with the trade discount it was a similar price to Wren.
When we came to doing our utilty room (3m x 3m) we went with B&Q (purely due to delivery times, this was during the first lockdown) and the quality is okay but I'm glad our main kitchen is Wren.

My BIL has just had a B&Q kitchen completed. He ordered it in March, it arrived in June with 50% missing and the lots of wrong items not on his receipt. It was an absolute shambles. There are huge delays with delivery at the moment. He finally got the replacement items delivered last month, the builder returned three times in total to compelte the install which ended up costing him more in labour, all due to the wrong items being sent by B&Q.

I would recommend Homebase, just had one of there kitchens, had B&Q kitchen in the past, the Homebase one is much better quality, soft close doors and drawers. Not heard good things about Wren. DIY kitchens are also meant to be good quality depends if you have the room to store the kitchen prior to fitting. Even a flat pack whole kitchen takes up a lot of space, have fun choosing.

As above, we had this with the B&q kitchen, to, read current reviews. The Homebase kitchen was delivered, no missing items and no damage.

Our kitchen chap said he wouldn't fit it if we bought wren. My son had new kitchen earlier this year. We had a look at wren in MK. Considering it was their showroom, trying to sell their product/service it was dreadful....Doors falling off, nothing fitted in a fitted kitchen, litter on floor, staff could not have been more unhelpful. B&Q much better. Reccomended a fitter. All good. I'd also endorse Howdens from recent past experience. But no, no, no to wren. (And their advert ages me cringe).

Another point to consider with Wren unless you have a driveway or wren can deliver outside or the same side of the street, they cannot deliver the kitchen. I was told this when my Homebase kitchen was delivered. It’s a busy road and driver had to park opposite and take the kitchen across the road, he said he used to deliver for wren and that he would not be allowed to deliver, and as there were cameras on the vans he would have dared to do it. I didn’t know that, and in that case I doubt there would have ever been a suitable time. So if you decide on Wren double check of this still applies.

Definitely try DIY Kitchens. You can email them your preferred design and they will replicate it and provide you with a quote. We had a great design from Magnet with a ludicrous price tag. I replicated it with DIY and one of their showroom staff sense checked things with me.

The quality is excellent and the trades who were working for us all said how good the quality was. Two friends have since ordered their kitchens from DIY having seen ours.

I'd use them again. For a small amount of work from me, we saved a huge amount of money.

IKEA or Howdens for me

and I’d be buying my appliances separately

one think to consider a friend got an ex display Benchmark one which was beautiful. look on eBay loads of ex display to suit all sizes.

I went with homebase for mine -

13 cupboards, 3 drawers, sink, taps, oven, hob, extractor & lights for £2500

They have designers in store that sit and go through it all with you and make a mock up of your design on a computer so you can see what it looks like. Very happy with their service