Hotel Furniture Installation Services in Miami, FL: Working Around Guests

Elite Anywhere receives, stores and installs hotel furniture (FF&E) in Miami from its warehouse in Doral, and its crews work around guests while the hotel stays open. For a hotel owner, operator, procurement team or designer looking for a hotel furniture installation company in Miami, that last point is often the deciding one: most refurbishment work happens in a property that is trading, and the installation has to fit around the people staying in it.

Installing furniture in an empty building is a logistics problem. Installing it in an occupied hotel is a logistics problem with an audience. Guests are in the corridors, the front desk is checking people in, housekeeping is turning rooms, and the lobby has to look like a lobby throughout. This article is about how that kind of job runs: how the furniture is received and held before it goes in, how it gets into the building, how the installation itself is done around guests, and what the hotel can hand over to the installation company.

The furniture arrives before the hotel is ready for it

Hotel furniture comes from many vendors, on many trucks, over weeks or months. Casegoods from one maker, seating from another, lighting, mirrors, art and soft goods from others again. Very little of it arrives in the order it will be installed, and an operating hotel has nowhere to put it. A ballroom or a back corridor full of cartons is a ballroom that cannot be sold and a corridor that guests will see.

So the furniture goes to Doral first. Elite Anywhere's Doral warehouse receives deliveries Monday to Friday, 9am to 3pm, by appointment. Each delivery's outside packaging is checked and photographed as it arrives, and the delivery is checked against the project's own list, the one the client sent us, rather than against whatever documents a vendor attached. Damaged packaging is reported before anything is stored, and the client decides what happens next. Inspection is free and on request: the client names the cartons, and they are opened and checked; on a hotel job that is worth doing for samples, custom pieces and the first delivery of any repeated item, so a problem with a finish or a fabric is found before it is multiplied across a property.

Every piece is barcoded, which on a hotel project means the warehouse knows exactly which items are in and which are still coming, by type and by room if the list is built that way. Pieces are held in secured, climate-controlled storage until each part of the property is ready for them, with no minimum period. The project team can follow it all in a login to Elite Anywhere's own warehouse system, see deliveries on the way and each item's status, and message the warehousing team directly.

Delivered in the order the installation needs

The warehouse's real value on a hotel job is the release. Furniture leaves Doral in the order the installation needs it, not in the order the vendors happened to ship it. Several vendors' orders go out together on one delivery, so each part of the property gets what it needs in one trip rather than a series of trucks across the day.

That matters more in an occupied hotel than anywhere else. Every truck at the loading dock is a truck the hotel has to accommodate. Every delivery through a back corridor is a delivery that has to avoid guests. Fewer, complete deliveries mean less disruption, and they mean the installation crew has everything it needs to finish an area rather than half of it.

The building is booked before the truck leaves

An operating hotel has its own rules about contractors, and they are stricter than a residential building's. The freight elevator is shared with housekeeping and room service. The loading dock serves deliveries of food, linen and supplies. Security wants to know who is coming and when, and the hotel's management or owner will want proof of insurance.

Elite Anywhere books the freight elevator and the loading window with the hotel, and files the certificate of insurance. Many hotel teams prefer to arrange access themselves, and they can; Elite Anywhere will do it for them if they would rather not. Either way, the access is settled before the delivery leaves Doral, so nothing stops at the dock waiting for an approval.

Working around guests

The defining feature of installation in an occupied hotel is that the hotel does not stop. Elite Anywhere's crews work around guests while the property stays open. In practice that means a few things.

Protection goes down first. Railings, doors, elevator interiors and every surface the furniture will pass are covered with blankets and coverings, so the hotel's public spaces are not marked by the work. Heavy pieces move on professional moving equipment rather than being dragged along corridors. Crews are sized to the job, so a single suite and a run of rooms do not get the same number of people.

The work should stay inside the areas the hotel has released for it. Furniture comes in, is installed, and the packaging leaves, so a finished area can go back to the hotel without a stack of cartons in it. And because deliveries come out of Doral complete and in the right order, crews are not standing in a corridor waiting for the next truck while guests walk past.

The practical advice for a hotel planning this kind of work is to agree, in advance and in writing, which areas are released when, which routes and elevators the crew can use, and who on the hotel's side the crew speaks to on the day. A crew that knows those three things can work around guests. A crew that has to find out as it goes cannot.

Guestrooms, suites and public areas are different jobs

A hotel installation is really three kinds of work under one contract, and it helps to plan them separately.

Guestrooms are repetition. The same bed, desk, chair, nightstands, mirror and art go into room after room, and the job is consistency: every room set the same way, every mirror at the same height, every desk in the same place against the same wall. The risk is that a problem with one item becomes a problem in every room, which is why it pays to ask for an inspection of the first delivery of each repeated item at Doral.

Suites are custom work. They usually carry the pieces that are made to order, the larger art and the statement lighting, and they need more time per room and more care with placement. They are also the rooms most likely to be photographed for the hotel's own marketing.

Public areas are seen by every guest, all day. A lobby, a lounge or a corridor cannot be closed for long, and work there has to be planned with the hotel so that guests are disturbed as little as possible. Protection of the route matters most here, because the floors, walls and elevators being crossed are the ones every guest uses.

A hotel that tells its installation company which of the three it is releasing, and when, gets a better plan than one that says "start whenever you can" and leaves the rest to the day.

The installation itself

Hotel furniture installation covers more than putting a bed in a room. The list of what Elite Anywhere's crews do on a hotel job is the list a hotel can take off its own team and off other trades.

• Placement. Each piece set where the layout puts it, in the guestroom, the suite, the lobby or another public area.
• Assembly. Beds, desks, tables, seating and casegoods that ship in parts, assembled in place.
• Art hanging. Art hung to the plan, measured and leveled.
• Wall mounting. Mirrors, shelving and wall-mounted pieces mounted securely.
• Leveling. Casegoods, tables and anything with doors or drawers leveled so the room feels finished.
• Light fixtures, hung. Chandeliers, pendants and sconces hung by the crew. The electrician wires them.
• Packaging taken away. Every carton, crate and sheet of foam leaves with the crew.

That division of work is worth stating clearly to the hotel's own engineering team. The crew hangs the fixture; the hotel's electrician or electrical contractor connects it. Scheduling the two together, so a fixture is hung and then connected in the same visit to an area, keeps the area out of service for as short a time as possible.

When an area is done, the crew goes through it with the hotel's representative. Each piece is photographed in place, the client is asked to report any damage and to give feedback before the crew leaves, and the sign-off is documented and kept. Everything handled with care.

Large projects run over several days

A refurbishment of a whole property, or of a large part of one, will not happen in a single working day. Elite Anywhere plans large projects as multi-day installations, and walks the client through the plan in advance: what is delivered when, which areas are worked on in which order, and how each area is left at the end of a day. For a hotel, that plan is also the plan for which rooms are out of service and for how long, which is the number the revenue team will want first.

What the hotel should prepare

• A complete project list. Every item, every vendor, every quantity, and the area each piece is for. This is what every delivery is checked against at Doral.
• Proof of shipment from vendors. The bill of lading for each delivery, so short shipments are caught on arrival.
• A release plan. Which areas are available for installation, and when.
• Access rules. Which elevator, which dock, which corridors, and any restrictions the hotel sets.
• Building and insurance requirements. What the hotel or owner needs on the certificate of insurance, and who to send it to.
• A contact for the day. One person on the hotel side who can make decisions when the crew asks.
• The electrician's schedule. So fixtures are connected as soon as they are hung.

When something arrives damaged or unannounced

On a hotel project with many vendors, some deliveries will arrive damaged and some will arrive without anyone having mentioned them. At Elite Anywhere's warehouses about two in ten arrivals are unannounced. When that happens, the team calls the carrier and then the shipping company until it knows which project the delivery belongs to. Damage gets documented, with photographs, and Elite Anywhere files the claim with the vendor straight away, leaving time for a replacement to arrive before that area is due to be installed.

Who else uses Doral for this kind of work

Hospitality projects are only one of the customer types the Doral warehouse serves. The same warehouse and crews serve procurement offices furnishing corporate space, interior designers working on residential and commercial interiors, showrooms, furniture manufacturers and private households. Elite Anywhere installs for every one of them as well as receiving, storing and delivering.

Beyond Miami

Doral counts among the ten hubs Elite Anywhere staffs itself. The wider network adds up to 34 warehouse locations, with delivery nationwide. For a hotel group with properties in more than one state, the same receiving, holding and installation standard applies at each, and furniture moving between states is handled end to end. Across the network, Elite Anywhere makes more than 50,000 deliveries a year, and a hotel group working with it in Miami is working with the same receiving routine, the same record and the same installation standard it would get anywhere else.

The short version

For hotel furniture installation in Miami, Elite Anywhere receives the property's furniture at its Doral warehouse, where every delivery is matched to the project's list, the packaging is photographed as it comes in, cartons are opened for inspection free whenever the hotel asks, and every piece carries its own barcode while it waits for its part of the hotel to be ready. It delivers in the order the installation needs, with several vendors' orders together, books the freight elevator and loading window and files the certificate of insurance, and its crews work around guests while the hotel stays open. On site they place, assemble, hang art, mount, level and hang fixtures for the electrician to wire, take the packaging away and ask the hotel to report any damage before they leave. Large projects are planned over several days, with the hotel, in advance.

Robert Sabo is Director of Operations at Elite Anywhere, which provides white glove delivery, receiving and installation from ten staffed warehouses, delivering nationwide.