You are buying the art line of an FF&E schedule by RFQ: hundreds of numbered pieces on one PO, a spec image to match, a budget per key and a date that has to hold

You are probably a project buyer at an FF&E procurement firm, or in the purchasing arm of a hotel group, buying every line of the designer's specification for a new build or a renovation. Art arrives on your desk as numbered line items per room type, each with an approved image, a size, a finish and a quantity, and it goes out in a multi-vendor RFQ alongside case goods, lighting and carpet. You are judged on three things: whether the vendor's piece matches the sheet, whether the unit price sits inside the budget per key, and whether the consignment lands at the consolidator on the week the install programme needs it.

Procurement guides describe the same loop: a specification with item codes, finishes and quantities; an RFQ evaluated on price, minimums, shipping and installation; a PO; then tracking of production and ship dates against arrival windows ². This page answers the questions that loop generates, in the order you ask them, using only what we actually do. It also covers fit-out and general contractors buying art against a provisional sum, in a short section near the end.

Not you? An owner or design director specifying a full programme is on hotel guest-room programmes. A hospitality art company that curates and subcontracts production is on hospitality art companies. If the line is only corridors, see corridor series; if it is one hero wall, see lobby statement art.

The first thing that goes wrong is the match. The designer approved an image months ago; the vendor who supplied it has a different size, a different frame, or no longer stocks it, and you are back to the designer for a substitution that costs a week. Hospitality art vendors typically take an order as an item code, a size, a finish and a quantity ⁴, which only works if the code is still producible in that size.

What we do: nothing is held in stock and nothing is printed, so every catalogue code is a painting that can be painted again. Send the spec image or one of our reference codes with the wall size and the finish, and we return a match from the 1,455 works or a variation of one. Three routes are on the table for every line:

• Resize. Any code painted at the dimensions on your sheet. Listed sizes are precedents, not a menu; 2 m and panoramic formats are normal.
• Recolour. The same composition in the scheme's palette, matched to fabric, paint or stone references.
• Vary. One code painted as a family of named colourways so a floor of rooms carries related, non-identical originals.

The match is confirmed on a sample at the 1-piece minimum before the award, and on progress photos or video at each stage once the run starts. If the approved image is a third party's work we do not copy it; we propose the nearest catalogue composition and paint that to your size and palette, which is usually what the designer wanted in the first place.

A quote that arrives after the bid tabulation closes is not a quote, and a price that is right per piece but silent on freight and minimums is re-worked twice before it can be compared. Buyers' guides say bids are judged on price together with minimum order quantities, shipping costs and installation fees, not on price alone ².

What we do:

• Turnaround. Every enquiry is quoted within 1 business day of receiving the schedule. Send the RFQ close date with it and the quote is dated to land before it.
• Price basis. There is no public price list. The quote is per piece and per tier: volume pricing is tiered from 10 pieces, so a 150-key run is priced at volume and the model-room piece at the 1-piece minimum.
• What the price includes. Painting, the artist's signature, the certificate of authenticity, and free insured shipping worldwide by DHL, FedEx or USPS. There is no separate freight line to reconcile and no crating charge.
• What it does not include. Local stretching or framing if you take rolled canvas, and installation on site.
• Payment. Against a proforma invoice, so a PO can be raised against a document; terms are available on repeat accounts.

Because the piece is painted for the order, the unit price for 50 variations of one code is a single line, not fifty, and the same code re-ordered for a second property is quoted on the same basis. We do not claim parity with print pricing; if the line is 300 identical images at a fixed unit cost, a print house is the right vendor.

Art is the line most often released last, after the model room, and the one with the least slack. Procurement lead-time guidance is blunt about the trap: the lead time on a specification is not the whole lead time, because PO processing, approvals, production, transit and holidays add up, and a four-week ocean transit can become six ¹. Case goods run 16–20 weeks in production alone ¹, and overseas FF&E is commonly planned at 18–24 weeks ³. Art does not need that, but it does need a date you can put in the tracker.

What we do, with the numbers separated so they can be entered in a schedule:

• Per piece: about 1 week to paint plus 3–7 days in transit by courier, 10–13 days door to door. This is the single-piece figure, not the project figure.
• Per project: send the quantity per room type and the required-on-site week; we quote within 1 business day and the batch dates in that quote are committed in writing. Batches are sequenced in your install order, floor by floor or zone by zone.
• Tracking: a tracking number is sent as each consignment ships, so the line moves from "in production" to "shipped" in your tracker on the day it happens.
• Buffer: we recommend the last batch lands two weeks before the install week, so a piece damaged in transit can be painted again and reshipped inside the programme.

The model-room piece can be painted months ahead and the run released when the floors are ready; the written date is given per release, not once for the whole project. Capacity for your quantity is confirmed in the quote; we do not publish a monthly figure.

Most art vendors ship to the buyer. Your consignment goes somewhere else: a consolidation warehouse near the project, a freight forwarder's dock or the site itself, often in a country the vendor has never invoiced. Guides on hotel FF&E logistics describe exactly this chain: warehousing, climate-controlled storage and last-mile delivery ahead of installation ³.

What we do: third-party delivery is a standard instruction, not an exception. We ship to a different recipient or a different country from the buyer on request; a consolidator, a forwarder or a site are instances of the same thing. What we need is the consignee name, the delivery address and the receiving hours, told to us at order stage so the paperwork and the labels carry the right party from the start.

• Carriers: DHL, FedEx or USPS, chosen per destination; shipping is free and every consignment is fully insured.
• Batches: multiple pieces are usually delivered together; a batch per floor or zone is shipped as one consignment with one tracking number.
• Finish and packing: rolled canvas travels in a strong paper tube for local stretching and framing, which is usually the practical route on long-haul and large formats; framed pieces travel boxed with hanging hooks supplied, ready to hang; frameless stretched pieces are also offered.
• Receiving: the consignee should unpack in front of the courier where possible and note any damage on the waybill; the rest of the damage route is in the next section.

If the project needs several consignees, for example rolled guest-room canvas to a framer and framed public-area pieces to site, each is set at order stage and appears on its own line of the order confirmation.

The two questions that stall a PO after award are the document set and the claims route. Here is both, in plain terms and without naming any code or term you would have to look up.

What we send with a 200-piece order:

1. A proforma invoice at quotation, so your PO is raised against a document.
2. An order confirmation in your position structure: Position · Code · Size · Colourway · Finish · Batch · Delivery date, one line per piece, so the art schedule in the FF&E package and our confirmation are the same document.
3. Progress photos or video for each piece at each stage, yours to keep against the line.
4. A tracking number per consignment as it ships.
5. A certificate of authenticity per piece, signed by the artist, packed with the piece; the piece itself is signed.

If pieces arrive damaged: every delivery is fully insured, and a piece that arrives damaged is replaced at no cost. The receiving party has four steps: have the courier note "damaged item" on the waybill; photograph the packaging and the piece before anything is discarded; send us the photos; keep the damaged piece and its packaging until the claim closes. We handle the carrier claim and paint the replacement. Because nothing is stock, the replacement is the same code, size and colourway, not a substitute.

Two things we do not supply: we do not certify canvas for flame spread or fire retardancy, so if the jurisdiction requires it, specify a local treatment or glazing; and we hold no approved-vendor status with any operator or brand.

The sequence below is the one your tracker already has columns for: PO date, acknowledgment, production, ship date, arrival window ². Our durations are attached to each step.

1. Schedule in. You send the art lines of the specification: image or code, size, finish, quantity per room type, consignee and the required-on-site week.
2. Quote out, within 1 business day. Per piece and per tier, with the batch dates written in, valid for the RFQ window you gave us.
3. Sample, 10–13 days. One piece at the 1-piece minimum, painted at the real size and finish for the model room. It becomes the reference for the run.
4. Award and PO. Payment against the proforma; the order confirmation comes back in your position structure.
5. Painting, about 1 week per piece. Each piece is painted to order and you, or the approver you nominate, receive photos or video at each stage; the painter continues only once the stage is approved. On a large run, name one approver and one substitute so approvals do not stall a batch.
6. Dispatch. Signed, certificate packed with each piece, free insured shipping by DHL, FedEx or USPS, tracking number sent per consignment.
7. Transit, 3–7 days. Batch by batch in install order to the consignee on the confirmation, to the dates committed at quotation.

The 10–13 day figure is the single-piece door-to-door time. The project dates are the ones in the quote, and they are the ones we are held to.

Six things make a quote accurate enough to tabulate without a clarification round. Send them through the quote form with the role set to FF&E procurement, or attach the art pages of the specification as they are.

1. The spec lines. Approved image or our code, size in cm or inches, finish, quantity, per room type and per public area. A spreadsheet or the PDF pages both work.
2. The finish per zone. Rolled canvas for local stretching; frameless stretched; or framed in gold, silver, black, white or wood, boxed with hooks.
3. Palette references where the image is to be recoloured: fabric, paint codes, stone or the scheme board.
4. Consignee and destination. The consolidator, forwarder or site, with the country, so third-party delivery is set at order stage.
5. Dates. The RFQ close date, the model-room date and the required-on-site week per batch.
6. Whether a sample is wanted first, and who approves stage photos on the run.

A spec line you can carry into the schedule reads: iHomeArt, code TA#526, Textured & Plaster, layered beige plaster ridges in contour lines, 81 × 61 cm (32 × 24 in), rolled canvas, painted to order, signed by the artist, certificate of authenticity supplied. Replace the code, size and finish per line; the rest is constant across the order.

Start from the commercial room tags, which are the vocabulary the schedule already uses: Guest Room & Suite (681 works), Lobby & Reception (557), Restaurant & Bar (525), Corridor & Circulation (447), Spa & Wellness (365), Meeting & Boardroom (224) and Workspace & Office (232). Every work carries several room tags, so the pools overlap and a code approved for guest rooms is usually also tagged for corridors.

Within guest rooms the styles that vary most easily across a floor are Textured & Plaster (160), Abstract (142) and Impressionist (125), because a palette shift changes the room without changing the drawing; 512 of the 681 guest-room works are tagged Peaceful or Calming. Corridors are 435 of 447 vertical, which is the format the wall wants. Lobby pieces skew Bold (286) and Dramatic (208), with 95 painted panoramic as catalogued; listed sizes run to 203 × 153 cm (80 × 60 in) for upright and landscape formats and 127 × 254 cm (50 × 100 in) for panoramic, with larger sizes and multi-panel sets quoted.

One caveat for headboard walls. The catalogue is painted mostly upright: only 62 guest-room works are horizontal as catalogued. A wide piece over a bed is therefore a Resize instruction, not a filter: choose the vertical and give us the width, and the composition is re-proportioned and painted at that size.

If you are the project manager or QS at a fit-out or design-and-build contractor, art is in your scope as a provisional sum, bought against the designer's schedule with three quotes, and your questions are about the site rather than the warehouse. The mechanics above hold; four things are specific to you.

• Dates and the programme. Send quantity and the site week; the date is committed in writing in the quote, and the quote itself lands within 1 business day, which fits a three-quote comparison inside a provisional-sum window.
• Delivery to site. Third-party delivery to a site in another country is set at order stage; consignments ship free and insured by DHL, FedEx or USPS with a tracking number, so the site team knows the week and the day.
• Ready for the installers. Framed pieces, in gold, silver, black, white or wood, ship boxed with hanging hooks supplied, so a piece can go from the box to the wall; frameless stretched and rolled canvas are also offered where a local framer is in the programme.
• Damage on a busy site. Note "damaged item" on the waybill, photograph packaging and piece, send us the photos and keep both until the claim closes; the piece is replaced at no cost.

For the O&M file, every piece is signed and ships with its own certificate of authenticity, and the order confirmation lists each position with code, size, colourway and finish, so the handover register is a copy of the confirmation. Payment is against a proforma invoice, so a PO can be raised the way the rest of the package is.