Wren Kitchens — Attraction in Lawrence Township

BUYER BEWARE!!! They have a nice showroom and talk a good game but they make SO MANY MISTAKES and do nothing to make it right! They have 1 star with the better business bureau for a reason. I have a very small, straight forward kitchen, so I thought how bad can it be? The Answer? BAD,BAD, BAD! IN my little u shaped kitchen they had the entire pennisular off by 3 inches!!!! It was supposed to exactly replace the original one but now because of the error the sub floor would have been visible! I had 2 choices, let the subfloor be visible, or the cabinets can be crooked!!! I should have sent it back and told them to build them right!! They had to shift it. So my microwave is off center above my stove and looks ridiculous!! But even WORSE we could not fit the stove back in!!! I am a planner so I had the kitchen demoed, the day before the cabinets arrived. The day after they arrived was the install. The day after the install I had my own contractor come to hook back up my stove. Their installers charge ridiculous prices to begin with and insane charges for extras. There was a weekend in here, so I would have been without the ability to cook for 6 days total. I used their installers who were very overpriced and left a huge mess. When I asked them to clean up they said "Wren won't pay us for that." I used their installers because I had heard if you use your own installers Wren will say any issue at all was your installers fault. Silly me, they don't make good when their installers screw up either!! So MY guy comes to install my existing stove after the install and it DOESN't fit!!! the stove was there all along, for the measure and the prefit and they had the model number, and all the dimensions and the opening was too small!!! I had to pay my guy because he came. Wren took over a week to even respond to this issue, initially saying something like "I will let compliance know and see what they say". WHAT?! The correct response is "I am so sorry this is unacceptable, we will fix it immediately" so now I am 2 full weeks of not being able to cook. Then after about 10 days they said ok we will send someone to fix it. They will call in a few days to make an appt. By this time my counter top ( which I did not buy from them) was due to be installed so I had to hire my own guy to fix the opening as the countertop install would have had to been delayed. And then PAY my guy to come AGAIN to install my stove. Wren said they will not reimburse me for any of this. Several days later they call to make an appointment to come to fix the stove issue. It was over three weeks since the install, would have been 4 weeks with no ability to cook!! They still needed to come because one of the doors had not been installed on the cabinets because they did not have the hinge. So they came and the hinge that the installer ordered was the wrong hinge. So they had to come again. They make an appointment about a week later and I tell them I have not yet received the new hinge so I cancel it. The day of the appointment the installer calls and says he will be there in an hour. I say no I do not have the hinge. They never told the installer. They do not communciate with each other and they do not care about the customer at all. I never heard from the salesperson again.... The next day I got the hinge and texted and called but now they are not responding. So 6 weeks later my crooked kitchen STILL is not completely installed. They want your money. You get an awful experience and loads of unexpected costs and stresses to make it right. NO.... can not be made right, to make...

Wren cabinets, great experience, a few minor gotchas. Considering the complexity of this purchase, though there were some minor gotchas which required some patience, overall, everything went well and the end result is superb.

Overall - we love the cabinets, they look amazing, and are super strong.

It was nice be able to walk into a very large showroom (in Lawrenceville, ~25-30 full kitchen examples maybe?) to see what was available. When doing your kitchen, it is nice to be backed by such a large organization with a good reputation. It seems well run and managed overall and was good enough to keep us from even looking at the competition.

The cabinets are very well made, all out of MDF, very solid and attractive. We got the Juratek (vinyl wrapped) finish, and it has a beautiful finish which should be easy to maintain. We did have a few defective parts where the wrap didn't adhere properly which were replaced without question

Unbelievably solid, I was able to do pull ups on the upper cabinets. They use plastic legs which some people don't like, but I found that makes for a much better installation due to the adjustability. The leg plastic feels a bit brittle, but when properly installed are quite solid. They are holding up our quartzite countertops which weigh up to 800lbs, no problem.

I did install myself as their installation costs are reasonably high, at least this is what I initially thought. Turns out, since all their cabinets are frameless, the sides, tops and bottoms around each cabinet are cut to size and installed in place. This made for a much more involved and time consuming installation than just hanging pre-made, framed cabinets. In retrospect, their installation price I feel is fair considering the amount of work involved.

Everything came exactly on time, that was very reliable.

When the cabinets showed up, I had a fair bit of boxes and packages for the installation. I did not go through everything to check for damage and I should have. There were some defective parts, and since I was replacing them as I moved along, each part took about a week to make and ship. After a couple of these, I went through the order and checked everything out. There were less than a handful of issues, which was not bad for my order which was over 20 cabinets.

Pre and Post Sales Support - pre sales was very accommodating. They spend plenty of time with you going through the showroom, figuring out what you like, going over options, and there are many! They put everything up on screen right away, and they also have a virtual reality station so you get to walk through your installation even prior to ordering if you like. Our salesperson could have been more adept at the software, we did sit for a while as he made changes we requested. I suppose it was ok all things considered since they were modeling it real time.

When we got to the topic of price, they weren't pushy but they do tell you they are having 'the best sales they've ever had' only to find they have these 'best sales ever' all the time. It appears to me they have a very high retail, then big markdowns (20-60%) to give a feeling of a good deal. We found their final pricing to be fair for what you get, so in my opinion, they should just start with that. I suppose this is not different than some others.

Post Sales Support - While going through the whole process prior to acquisition, I hadn't thought about this and it ended up being one of their strengths. Always available, very helpful, addressed all issues. A bit to get the showroom on the phone,...

My experience is unusual because the start and end were not as predicted or as I would have liked. I knew at some point I had to do something about my kitchen. You know "Some Point" is somewhere between last week and the middle of the next blue moon. My main focus was dad's health situation and moving was not a serious consideration. I walked into Wren to day dream and forget about what I couldn't control. When the person greeted me, I thought "Oh no, I can't afford this and this going to be a pushy sales person". When I said I had less nothing to spend they were not dissuaded and made me feel comfortable when looking around. They convinced me to have someone come out and do a no obligation measurement. They also set me up a day to come back and meet with my designer. Well my dad died and there was a lot unnecessary drama so having somebody come into my home was the last thing I needed. Well I forgot to cancel. This guy shows up and he explained he was days away from a major surgery. I am sure he only volunteered that because I reveal the place was a mess and why. I was mortified when he started taking pictures. He made me feel comfortable and I tried to the same about his surgery. I missed my design appointment and after those pictures of my kitchen and still not being in the mood to buy a kitchen, I was ok with that. They did hassle the heck out of me. I was grateful and just let the moment pass. About a year later I had a flood in my kitchen and it took out the ceiling of the basement. To say I was in shock was an understatement. I called my insurance company and they immediately set me up with an army to combat mold and such. I remembered Wren. Before anyone else came, I drove over to Wren. My "kitchen designer" happened to be there that night. Although she had a serious personal commitment going on herself that day, she assured me she had the time to work out plan. Let me tell you Marnie listened to what needs I had and was so good she had something done in an hour. Within the few hours I spent in total with Marnie, I knew this was a no nonsense person who was out to sell me some kitchen I couldn't afford or didn't make sense for my resale goals. The unfortunate ending to this story is most contractors through insurance companies are driven to do one thing: maximize the claim for their benefit. They intimidated me out of getting a great kitchen solution with Wren. I found out after that the bottom line is YOU THE HOME OWNER decide who does the work in your home. I did a lot of research and my suggestion is you go with the contractor your Wren designer tells you to go with (as long as you trust them as much as I trusted Marnie). My experience with every person at Wren was extremely positive. The one negative is they don't have voicemail for the designers. I am going to reserve my thoughts about that and just say, Wren was a 5 star experience from beginning to end. My insurance company, Amica, is top notch as well. Their contractors should be locked up for fraud and theft but that's...