WREN Linda Barker Kitchen

Apnomis

Hi all, newbie here (to the forum part of the site at least) wondering if some of you could give me feedback on a quote I received recently from Wren Kitchens.

Now before we get straight into the Wren horror stories :eek: I am aware that this company has it's fair share of disgruntled customers. However I'm also aware they provide thousands of kitchens and have plenty of (considerably less vocal) happy customers. I suppose the horror stories are part of why I'm looking for the reassurance about the quote. But I would say there are plenty of unhappy customers of B&Q, or Wickes, or Ikea, or Magnet etc. too. Additionally I have no intention of using Wren's fitting service so that risk is taken away.

The reason we chose Wren was we want a high quality kitchen that will last us a long time as we have no plans on moving any time soon. We are not interested in white melamine-coated particle board carcasses, as we have them in our current kitchen which is falling apart.

My wife in particular fell in love with design of the Linda Barker Country collection with it's quality touches, oak effect carcasses, soft close doors, and things like the oak effect dish display wall cabinet (which only appears to be available in the Linda Barker range at Wren). So from a quality and design point of view we're happy and all cabinets come with a lifetime warranty too. In addition the Wren designer (who has recently been promoted to assistant manager so isn't a newbie) gave some genuinely great design ideas that we hadn't even considered which has really enhanced our original vision. All of which lead us to doing the thing I promised myself I wouldn't do - part with a deposit to secure the price I had negotiated

So on to the price then - which included the usual discount, plus some promotional appliances, plus some extra store manager approved discount. The price includes - 5 wall cabinets of varying sizes/designs, a chimney hood extraction fan, 9 base cabinets including a pan drawer and housings for an integrated fridge/freezer, oven/hob, sink/tap, and slimline dishwasher (all supplied by Wren, with exception of our washing machine which we are keeping), and bespoke-laminate worktops including a breakfast bar. The shape of the new kitchen is a G-shape (a U-shape with addition of a breakfast bar peninsular).

The 'list' price which we all know is completely ridiculous and made up is just shy of £19K :rotfl:, the deal we got was £7600. This excludes fitting as we are using our own builders (who are also removing a partition wall and bricking up a door in the process) but given the Linda Barker range comes fully assembled rather than flat-packed I'm hoping that will keep the install costs down a bit.

So over to you guys, does this seem reasonable? And by reasonable I mean compared to good quality solid kitchen not the Ikea value range that a landlord would fit?

It's definitely the top end of what we were wanting to pay, but we don't mind paying a bit more for the extra quality - I just don't want to be hoodwinked into paying much more than what the kitchen is worth...

We live in the North West if that makes any difference...

Thanks for reading!

Furts

You have placed your deposit so there seems little point in discussing the price. Good quality kitchens can be obtained for a fraction of your quote through builders merchants. To give a rough indication my kitchen would have been around a half your quote, or on reflection, perhaps one third the cost.

The bottom line is, provided you are happy then that is all that matters.

Apnomis

Furts, thanks for the reply. We are still in the cooling off period for the quote so it is not too late to cancel. I would fight for the deposit back as the T's and C's don't say non-refundable, however even if I had to write it off as the design cost I would be more than happy to do that as they did make some really worthwhile tweaks to our initial ideas. And if it is half the price for something of similar spec then £760 is a small price to pay...

I think I will approach a couple of independents to give a price based on the Wren plans via e-mail and see if it's worth pursuing...

Andehh

Quote doesn't seem to bad tbh! Hard to comment further without knowing the full break down of appliances etc.

As for people saying should have gone for small & independent our £8,000 kitchen from wrens is currently made up of £3k worth of very reasonably priced appliances compared to Internet prices, £1k of niff naff & trivia items leaving the cabinets at around £4k.


For the sake of the safety net that comes with them, their design their measurements their appliances their delivery their guarantee and theoretically one delivery date for it all..... even several 100 extra is worth the ease of use & stress free process.

Apnomis

Thanks Andehh, I think the horror stories that I keep seeing about Wren have eroded my initial assumption of having the safety net of a bigger supplier so the process isn't very stress free as I've got the small nagging feeling that there's a chance I could be one of the unlucky Wren customers.

I've priced the appliances we're getting to be around £1500 if we bought them ourselves separately. Plus another £350 on things like the sink, designer tap, handles, lighting etc. I'd guestimate around £650 for the worktop. So that leaves £5100 for 14 cabinets and housings of varying shapes and sizes.

So by no means do I feel ripped off at this point, but I just don't want to pay overly top end prices if it's possible to get something equally good for 1/2 price or even a 1/3 of the price as has been suggested. Although whether this is just perception when dealing with big kitchen showrooms or reality when all things are considered remains to be seen.

In any case I have e-mailed a couple of independents to see what happens. Looks like it's very much 1-1 on the forum at the moment though...

As an aside Andehh, which range did you go for? Have you had it fitted yet? Are you happy with the service received and the quality of the finished product?

Andehh

We have gone for their shaker alabaster kitchen, and put the deposit down last week.

We went to Wickes & Howdens to price match, and Wren comfortably beat Howdens, who couldn't get close and matched Wickes - despite Wickes being flat packed & of a lesser quality IMO.

I priced matched half of our appliances, and just couldnt find anyone who would save us more then 5% on them, same with the taps etc - something I was surprised about - i expected them to price gouge them without much effort.

As for the ''poor'' reviews of Wrens, keep in mind on review centre / trust pilot etc they have a 77%-odd review rating, which puts them head & shoulders above the competition, Wickes/B&Q/Homebase have single figure ratings, Howdens on 40-odd % etc etc....so they are clearly one of the better kitchen manufacturers.

Providing you go for a fitter who instills confidence in you & you make it clear your feelings - ie good fitter make a bad kitchen good, bad fitter make a good kitchen bad & stress the quality aspect then that's about all you can do!

I also feel more comfortable it's Wren who I will rain hellfire down on should something go wrong from their end rather then Joe Bloggs who works out of his shed but is ''authentic'' in his methods but hit or miss with his potential after-sales? I also like the idea of raising hell with Wren's if in 5 years hinges go wrong, doors drop or something fails....rather then Joe Bloggs who has now changed mobile contracts and no longer remembers me.

if you are desperate to save money, a half way house would be DIY Kitchens is online only and are approx 30-40% cheaper then Wrens [but same quality] if you are desperate to really save money...HOWEVER....you bring them the design and YOUR measurements and they will sell you a similar kitchen to match at such discount. They don't design, measure, or take the risk so they can do it cheaper. Lord help you should you get the measurements wrong or have issues, the fault is on your head & you will pay to make it right.

As for the service with Wren's, couldn't fault them at all. Even with out deposit down 2 weeks ago they are hugely welcoming of any changes or adjustments we want (3rd iteration of tweaks atm). We knocked over £700 off the price with some adjustments which they were happy with, and then suggested we may get the worktop elsewhere - and they treated us as if they still needed our business. We also swapped cabinets round, and they still discounted the new cabinets in line with the discount we were already getting. Very impressed so far - and I AM a discerning customer!

premkit

I have fitted a wren and was surprised how good it was, I was expecting poor quality all around. Overpriced but decent enough.
Bespoke Worktops comes with another overprice tag.. Square edge tops look good but have there faults.

The price is good if you think it's good. The fitter is just as important as the choice of kitchen. Get that wrong and you will have months of hell, get a good one and in two weeks you will be back to normality with a big smile on your face.

Good luck, it's a big upheaval.

adamg

Wren are a joke of a company the sooner they go bust the better

iglimpse

Currently I am wavering between Wren designed units which I am impressed with, or Howdens which are just ok. We have had a very basic quote from Wren, awaiting a survey. Very glad to read here that the price quoted by Wren can be reduced.

Mojoted

Don't take too much notice of rave reviews on consumer websites. If you Google the Guardian and fake reviews on consumer websites you will see a report on an investigation they did recently. It does not mention Wren by the way and I am not saying theirs are fake. I did put in a link but as a new user I am not allowed to.

chedolore

Hi Andehh

Did you go ahead with the Wren Kitchen?
I am also considering Wren Linda Baker kitchen. I was shocked about the costs even after (50+25% off).
Are you happy with The final result?
Chedolore