A Receiving Warehouse for Interior Designers in Phoenix: Holding a Project While the Build Finishes

Elite Anywhere runs a receiving warehouse for interior designers in Tempe, serving Phoenix and the rest of the Valley — receiving Monday to Friday, 9am to 3pm, by appointment — then holds, delivers and installs. A great deal of what it does for Phoenix designers is the holding: keeping a client's furniture secured and climate-controlled, sometimes for months, while the house it was bought for is still being built.

Furniture and construction run on separate clocks. A designer places orders when the plans are settled, and vendors ship when the pieces are made. The house is finished when the builder finishes it, which is often later than anyone hoped. When the furniture is ready first, it needs somewhere to wait that will not damage it, lose it or make it hard to check on. That is the job this article describes: a long hold done properly, from the day the first piece arrives to the day the last one is carried into a finished room.

Why the wait is the risky part

A piece of furniture is at its most vulnerable not on the truck but in the weeks it sits somewhere unsuitable. In the Valley, the obvious unsuitable places are a garage, an unfinished house with the power off, or a storage unit with no climate control. Heat and dry air are hard on veneers, glue joints, leather and lacquer, and a carton stacked in a closed garage for a season can come out with problems nobody can trace to a cause.

The less obvious risk is administrative. Over a long build, pieces arrive one at a time from many vendors, some early, some late, some with nobody expecting them. If they land at a site, a studio and a client's current home, nobody has a complete picture of what is in, what is missing and what has been damaged, and by the time the house is ready it may be too late to take a fault up with the vendor who caused it.

A receiving warehouse answers both. The pieces wait in one controlled place, and they are recorded the day they arrive.

Start the hold with a good record

A long hold is only as good as the record made at the start, because that record is what everyone relies on months later. At Tempe, each delivery is checked against the list you sent us, and its outer packaging is photographed and condition-checked. We ask the vendor's side for the bill of lading, so the record shows what was sent as well as what arrived.

If the packaging is damaged, you are told before the piece is stored, and you decide whether to have it opened. For anything going into a long hold, it is worth going one step further and asking for an inspection when the piece first lands. Cartons are opened and inspected whenever you ask, free of charge, and a fault found in week one can still be taken up with the vendor. The same fault found at install day, after a long wait, is much harder to pursue. When damage turns up, it is documented and Elite Anywhere files the claim with the vendor.

Over a project, about two arrivals in ten turn up unannounced: a partial shipment, say, or a back-ordered piece the studio had stopped expecting. The Tempe team traces those by calling the carrier and then the shipping company until it is clear which client they belong to, so nothing sits unclaimed through a long hold. Every piece is barcoded on its own, which on a project spread over many months is what keeps two separately boxed nightstands from becoming one nightstand and a mystery.

The conditions during the hold

At Tempe the storage space is climate-controlled, and humidity and pests are both kept in check as a matter of course. The warehouse is secured. Pieces are held as part of the designer's project, not scattered across a building by delivery date, so when the release comes everything for that client is together. Cover applies to goods while they are in storage.

It is worth being clear about what this is not. It is not self-storage. There is no unit to rent, no padlock and no one from the studio driving out to meet trucks. The warehouse team receives, records, holds and releases the goods; the designer watches from a login.

There is no minimum, and no maximum to plan around

Storage at Tempe has no minimum period, short or long. A rug that arrives a week before install can be held a week. A commissioned dining table that arrives before the slab is poured can be held until the house is done, however long that turns out to be. A designer does not have to estimate the build schedule to book storage, which is fortunate, because nobody can.

That flexibility matters most when the schedule slips more than once. The warehouse simply keeps holding, and the record stays current, rather than the designer having to find a second place to move everything to when the first arrangement runs out.

Visiting a stored piece

Over a long hold, a designer or client often wants to see something again. A fabric needs checking against a newly chosen paint color. A client wants to look at a chair they approved from a photograph. A contractor needs a measurement. You or your client can visit to see or collect stored pieces; it helps to tell the warehouse when you are coming, so the right pieces are easy to get to.

Fresh photos instead of a drive

Not every question needs a visit. Fresh photos of a stored piece are available on request, which is the practical answer when the client is out of state, the designer is on another site, or the question is simply whether a piece is still in good condition after several months. A current photograph of the actual piece, taken where it is stored, settles that faster than any description.

For a client who is paying for furniture they will not see for half a year, that is often what makes the wait comfortable. They can see that it exists, that it is in good condition and that someone is looking after it.

Knowing what is in, at any point

Studios using Tempe are set up with a login to Terminal, the proprietary warehouse system Elite Anywhere runs. It lists the status of every item on the project, shows deliveries still on their way, tracks anything in transit, and carries messages straight to the warehousing team. Clients can follow their pieces through photo check-ins and live tracking. Over a long build, this is what lets a designer give a confident monthly update: what has arrived, what is still coming, and whether anything needs a decision.

What to send before the first piece ships

A long hold goes best when the warehouse knows a few things about the project from the start, not just about each delivery as it lands.

• The list. Item, vendor, finish, quantity and the room each piece is for. Update it whenever an order changes, because the list is what every arrival is checked against.
• The name vendors will use. The client or project name each vendor should put on the order and the label, so an arrival is matched the moment it is unloaded.
• The builder's best guess. Not a promise, just the current estimate of when the house will be ready, so nobody is surprised by how long the hold runs.
• Which pieces to inspect. Custom upholstery, matched pairs, anything bought unseen. Putting the request on file before the carton arrives means it happens on the first day.
• Who can visit and who can release. Whether the client may come to see pieces on their own, and who on the studio's side decides when the delivery goes out.

Ten minutes on this at the start saves a great many phone calls over a build that runs long.

When the plan changes during the hold

A design rarely survives a long build unchanged. A client sees the finished kitchen and wants a different stool. A room is reassigned. A piece is canceled and a replacement ordered from another vendor. Over several months, the list the warehouse started with can drift a long way from the list the house will actually need.

That is manageable as long as the record keeps up. Send the warehouse the change when it happens, rather than saving changes for install week, and the barcoded record and the login keep matching the project. When the release day comes, the crew loads what the house needs now, not what it needed when the first carton arrived. A message through the login is usually the simplest way to do it, because the change then sits alongside the item it concerns.

Questions to put to any warehouse before a long hold

Before trusting anyone with a client's furniture for months, a designer can ask a short set of questions and judge the answers. Is there a minimum period, or a point at which the arrangement has to be renewed? Is the space climate-controlled, and is humidity managed as well as temperature? What is recorded when each piece arrives, and can I see it? Will you open a carton when I ask, and what does it cost? Can my client visit? Can you send me a current photo of a specific piece? And when the house is ready, will the people who held the furniture be the ones who carry it in?

When the house is finally ready

Release is the reason for the hold. When the builder hands over, the designer picks the day, and orders from many vendors leave Tempe together on one delivery. A large house that cannot be finished in one working day can run over several; the order in which rooms are completed is agreed with the designer beforehand, and the client hears it at the same time. Pieces travel in climate-controlled vehicles, so they are not undoing a careful hold in the back of a hot truck on the way to the house.

The client receives a text about half an hour before the crew arrives. The route through the house is protected before anything moves, railings and door frames padded and coverings laid along the whole path, which in a newly finished house is the part the builder will be watching most closely. Anything heavy rides on proper moving equipment. Pieces go to the rooms the plan assigns them, where they are unpacked, put together and set in position; art and mirrors go up, wall pieces are mounted, case goods leveled, and light fixtures are hung for the electrician to wire. Every bit of packaging leaves with the crew.

Before leaving, the crew asks the client to report any damage and to share feedback on the delivery, and that sign-off is documented and retained. Condition is photographed again at delivery, so the record runs from the day a piece landed in Tempe to the day it was placed. Everything handled with care.

A building the house is in

Not every Valley project is a single-family build. Condominium buildings, resorts and communities with an association often want a certificate of insurance before a crew comes in, and set delivery hours. Elite Anywhere provides certificates of insurance on request and will book the freight elevator and the loading window with the building if the client would rather not. Send the property's rules with the booking.

Who else holds at Tempe

Interior designers are the warehouse's main users, and long holds are common to several of the others too. Furniture manufacturers keep product there before it is delivered and installed in a buyer's home. Showrooms hold sold pieces until the customer's house is ready. Galleries and art collectors hold work in climate control. Procurement offices, hospitality projects and private households use it as well, and Elite Anywhere installs for all of them.

Tempe and the rest of the country

Tempe is one of ten staffed Elite Anywhere warehouses and part of a network of 34 warehouse locations. Elite Anywhere delivers nationwide and makes more than 50,000 deliveries a year. Where a client is moving to the Valley from another state, the move is handled end to end, and the furniture can wait at Tempe until the new house is finished.

The short version

When the furniture is ready before the house, hold it somewhere built for holding. Record it well on the first day, and ask for inspections early, while the vendor can still put things right. Keep it secured and climate-controlled with no minimum period to worry about. Visit when you need to, ask for photos when you cannot, and watch the project from a login rather than a phone. Then release it in one go when the house is finally ready.

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