Carrying Wren Kitchens Up the Hill in Llantrisant

Up in the old town the units get dropped at the nearest accessible point and carried in by hand, and with Wren that carry is heavier than most people picture because nothing arrives flat. A built base unit, a tall larder and a three metre worktop all have to go up a narrow, steep lane and through an eighteenth century doorway that was not designed for them. We walk the access at the survey, agree the drop point with you before the Wren delivery is booked, and flag anything on the plan that will not physically get through the door. That conversation is far better had over a drawing than on a wet morning with a driver waiting at the bottom of the hill.

Those cottages have thick stone walls, low ceilings, small openings and floors that have settled over two centuries, so almost nothing is square and very little is a standard size. Wren units go in one at a time, levelled on their legs to a single datum, packed off the stone where the wall wanders and scribed with fillers and end panels so the run reads true. An extractor through a wall like that needs a core drill and patience, a sleeved duct and a decent external grille, not a hammer. Conservation area controls are aimed at the external appearance rather than at replacing units inside, but anything that changes the outside, a vent or a grille on a front elevation for instance, is worth checking with Rhondda Cynon Taf planning before we cut.

Down the hill it is a different day. Talbot Green, Beddau and Pontyclun are mostly post war and modern estate housing with regular rooms, level floors and plasterboard walls, so a Wren kitchen goes in predictably and quickly once it is in the house. The usual constraint is size rather than shape, because a lot of those kitchens are narrow galleys where the boiler, the back door and the window are all fighting over one short run, and the gain comes from a better layout and taller storage rather than more floor area. Wall unit fixings still have to reach the block or a noggin behind the board. Wherever you are, the Wren plan gets checked against the real room before the order goes in and you get a fixed written price after the survey.

What is included

• Perfect unit alignment
• Seamless worktop joins
• Integrated appliance fitting
• Full Wren range experience

Fitting Wren kitchens

Wren supply rigid, pre-built units rather than flat-pack, so the fitting work is less about assembly and more about getting a dead level run across floors that are rarely level. Wren also deliver the whole kitchen in one drop, which means you need somewhere dry to store it and a fitter booked for a date that lines up with that delivery. We survey before ordering wherever possible so the plan matches the room rather than the other way round.