AW

My beautiful day bed and desk arrived today, looking great.

The design process was really straightforward and open to suggestions and changes. There was good communication and expectation management throughout, and while the lead time was quite long, they gave me the link to an app to track the ship, which was great fun!

Absolutely worth the wait for these great forever-furniture pieces.

My installer, Ervin, was on time, friendly, helpful, clean in his work, and really considerate of making sure cables and boxes were neat or hidden away. And the broadband works! Great job.

Thank you to Bianca for my delivery, and for putting up with my barking dog! Most kind.

Good quality product (Ariane garden store) and very happy all round. Would use Dunster House again.

Commissioning the kitchen was great; helpful, friendly service from Miron in Croydon.

But buyer beware of what happens next.

1. Wren allocate a contractor. Not a Wren employee; someone on their list. Our's was changed twice before we got someone, and none of the choice or safeguards you get from CheckaTrade or similar were part of that process. We were at the mercy of Wren and the guy who showed up.

2. Wren only sells you a 'dry fit.' This means if you want ANYTHING other than the installation of cabinets and the placement of *unconnected* appliances, YOU negotiate this with the contractor, and he quotes whatever he likes. You can always say no, but at this point, it's easy just to say yes, and go with his quote. Which we did.

3. If you've asked for a special worktop, a different company attends once the cabinets have been fitted to 'template' (measure). There is then a 10 day wait for manufacture, delivery and installation. If you are not there to sign for those first measurements, they will not start making your worktop. They tell you this, but in a shower of communications (one even had an instructional cartoon!) in which the message definitely gets lost.

4. The extra work (tiling, painting, movement of some electrics, hanging of new radiator) went from a £3,700 quote to a £5,700 bill with no warning or checking to see if we could afford this. Items in the invoice were wrong. Our contractor was charging big, paying his subcontractors small, and pocketing the extra.

5. Work started on 8 July. They finish today, 8 August. A two week job turned into one month of dust, strangers in our home and no proper kitchen.

We thought we were buying a finished, fitted, ready to use kitchen. We're disappointed, stressed and out of pocket.

We haven't been naive or careless. Like most people, we don't get new kitchens every day, and we put our trust in a reputable company.

So, sure, it's a nice-looking kitchen, but be very clear that you know what you're getting into.

*** EXTRA ***
The day the work ended, our kitchen was still covered in plastic film, tiling and grouting having been done *over* it at the edges making it impossible to completely remove, and lots of dust. Removing (most) film and dust exposed a fault with one door, and a scratch to our new radiator. Our brand new floor tiles and grout were ingrained with filth.

Wren say we must take it up with the contractor, with whom our relationship has totally broken down.

This won't be everyone's Wren experience, but it shows that when things go wrong, Wren are *nowhere* to be found. They could have salvaged this with a little goodwill. They failed.

This was a Two Star review. Events since installation make it a One Star.

Really good experience buying a bathroom from Kate at Croydon; helpful, knowledgeable and very honest and straightforward. Would definitely return and rely on her for help with our kitchen and other tiling.