Hotel Mock Rooms: How to Approve FF&E Before Ordering the Full Run

A hotel mock room is one fully furnished sample room, built from production-specification items before the full order is placed. It costs about one room's worth of goods, and it catches errors that would otherwise be repeated in every room. For a 60-room hotel, that is under 2% of the FF&E order used to check the other 98%.

Drawings, brochures and single samples do not show how a room works. A bedside table can fit on the plan and still block a socket. A wardrobe can meet the spec and still be too deep for the door to open. The mock room is where these surface, at the price of one item instead of sixty.

It is a real room, or a space of the same dimensions, furnished with the actual items, finishes and fabrics that will go into production. It usually includes the bed and mattress, bedside tables, wardrobe or luggage rack, desk and chair, curtains, lighting, bathroom fittings, linen and the small electronics. The purpose is decision, not display, so it should be built to the final specification, not to something close.

• Clearances: door swing, wardrobe opening, the space to walk round the bed, and access to sockets and switches.
• Housekeeping: have a housekeeper make the bed and clean the room and time it. Our piece on housekeeping-friendly room design explains why this matters.
• Lighting: check reading light positions, switch logic, and the light at night in the bathroom.
• Comfort: lie on the bed, sit at the desk, use the chair for an hour, not a minute.
• Noise and feel: drawer runners, wardrobe doors, television arm, bathroom fan.
• Finishes: check colour under real light, not showroom light, and edge quality on the casegoods.
• Bathroom: shower flow, shelf reach, towel rail position and mirror height.

Owner, operator, designer and housekeeping. The order matters less than the fact that housekeeping is in the room, since they see problems the others do not. Record decisions in writing, with photographs, as a numbered snag list against each item. Sign-off across owner, operator and architect can take four to six weeks by itself, as our lead-time guide notes, so book those people's time when you book the mock room.

The cost is one room's goods, not extra goods, since the mock room items can usually become room one after approval. For 60 rooms that is one sixtieth of the order, about 1.7%. Add the sample lead time, which we put at three to five weeks for custom upholstery and casegoods in the supplier sample stage, and the time to bring stakeholders together.

Compare that to the failure it avoids. An error found in the mock room costs the price of one item to fix. The same error found after delivery is repeated across every unit in the order and is fixed under time pressure, often after the warranty argument has started.

• Check delivered production items against it during receiving and the pre-opening punch list
• Train housekeeping on bed-making and set-up in the actual room
• Photograph it for staff manuals and the housekeeping checklist
• Use it to settle disputes with the supplier about what was specified

If you cannot build a full mock room, do a partial one: bed, bedside, wardrobe and curtain in one space. A partial mock room catches most spatial errors. You can also see a furnished room in our live room to compare ideas before you build your own.