What to Check When Furniture Arrives

The five minutes at the door decide whether a problem is a quick conversation or a long one. It is worth knowing in advance what you are looking for, because the moment is rushed and the driver is waiting.

Before the lorry arrives

• Clear the route. Hallway, turns, stairs. Measure if you have not already, because this is where the genuinely expensive failure happens. Measuring the doorway and stairwell takes five minutes.
• Decide where it goes and clear that spot. An 84 kg bench should be set down once.
• Protect the floor on the route for anything heavy, and have pads ready for the final position. Protecting floors under heavy pieces covers what to use.
• Have a second person, for anything over about 25 kg. The Concrete Bench at 84 kg is a two-person object and not a brave one-person object.
• Charge your phone. Photographs are the whole evidence base.

At the door, in order

1. Photograph the packaging as it arrives, on the pallet or in the van, before anything is touched. Thirty seconds.
2. Look for transit damage to the outside. Crushed corners, punctures, water staining, a strap that has cut in. Damage to packaging is not damage to furniture, but it tells you where to look.
3. Note any packaging damage on the delivery note before signing. This single step is what preserves a claim.
4. Unwrap if you can. If the driver will wait, open it. If not, write unexamined on the note.
5. Sign, with notes. A signature with nothing written on it is taken as everything was fine.

Inspecting the piece

Do this in daylight, from the distance you will normally look at it, in the room rather than in a hallway.

• Function first. Does it stand level on a flat floor. Does every door and drawer operate. Is any joint loose under hand pressure. These are the faults that matter.
• Surfaces second. Chips, scratches, dents, a coating flaw. Look at normal distance, not with a torch at 200 mm, where every surface ever made looks damaged.
• Count the parts. Fixings, keys, feet, spare covers.
• Check against the specification. Dimensions, materials, colour. A colour that reads differently from the sample is worth a conversation, but see how it looks at night first.
• Photograph the piece from four or five angles, plus the piece number if there is one. This is your condition record and it is also the start of your provenance file. Provenance and resale explains what else goes in it.

What is not a fault: grain variation, cast surface texture, visible dressed weld seams, hand-sprayed edges that differ from the photographs. Those are the product. Why handmade pieces are not identical draws the line.

The first fortnight

A new finish is touch-dry on delivery and not fully cured. In that window a film can take an impression from anything left sitting on it.

• No covers, no mats, no tablecloths, no tape.
• Nothing stored on the surface. Use it normally, just do not leave objects in one place.
• Felt pads under things that will be moved on it, from day one.
• Let a piece delivered in winter acclimatise before judging gaps or tightening fixings. Humidity, heating and furniture covers why it moves.

If something is wrong

Report on the day. Photographs, a plain description of what the problem is, and where it is on the piece. Do not attempt a repair before reporting, because an attempted repair complicates every conversation that follows and can remove the option of a proper fix.

Separate the two categories when you write. Transit damage is a carrier and packaging matter. A manufacturing fault is a workshop matter. They get handled differently and saying which you think it is speeds everything up.

Keep the packaging, briefly

Hold onto it for a week or two. If anything has to go back, the original packing is what gets it there intact, and for a heavy or awkward piece it is genuinely difficult to improvise. After a fortnight, when the piece has settled and nothing has emerged, let it go.

Reality check

• Photograph the packaging before touching it.
• Note any damage on the delivery note before signing, or write unexamined.
• Check function first, surfaces second, at normal viewing distance.
• Nothing left sitting on a new finish for a fortnight.
• Report problems the same day and do not attempt a repair first.