Completion

The kitchen has been completed now for a few weeks apart from a few minor snagging items to sort out. The final result is shown below. Whilst we are reasonably pleased with the kitchen, I'm not sure is you would class Wren at the 'top of the league' as far as quality is concerned. You can view previous blogs for qualification of that. Whilst the showroom displays and the design service are very good, the main problem we encountered was the result of careless handling at the factory and the less than ideal fitting and adjustment of mechanical items at the factory.

Whether this kitchen was 'value for money' is debatable since along with other kitchen sellers, Wren uses 'discounts' as an on-going marketing ploy to confuse customers so you will never know the real prices for comparison purposes.

We shall see how the kitchen stands up to normal use over the next few years, it is an Infinity Plus product so has a 25 year warranty/guarantee. Wren state that they 'raised the bar' with the introduction of the Infinity bespoke product range in 2016, certainly there is a  very wide choice of units, appliances and colour schemes. The 25 year warranty actually only applies to carcasses, it does not apply to worktops or fair wear and tear or colour deterioration. Not much chance of a successful claim then after a few years.

Lack of Attention to Detail

Wren cupboard doors appear to be per-drilled for either LH or RH opening, in other words hinges go on the appropriate side and 2mm thick plastic covers fit into the redundant holes on the opposite side. Now that is OK if you have a cupboard with double doors for example but not so with a single cupboard as the white cover does not allow the door to sit flush against the carcass. This is annoyingly obvious if the cupboard is LH opening next to a drawer unit on the RHS  as the door and drawers don't sit flush. As it happens, out of 15 cupboard doors on our units, 14 doors are pre-drilled for either hand operation but one door on an appliance tower is only drilled one side so that one closes flush........so it can be done properly when they feel like it.


Secondly you will find that fillers and end panels you have chosen will have your colour/finish on one side and both edges but the other side is just plain matt white. This means the white reverse can be seen at plinth recesses and all end panels if they are not positioned flush up against a wall.