How Much Attic Stock Should You Order for Hotel FF&E?

Agree spare quantities by category at order stage: soft goods such as drapery panels, cushion covers and upholstery fabric; components such as drawer runners, hinges and headboard panels; and matched shades, bulbs and LED drivers. Put the quantities and item codes in the purchase orders. Confirm packing space, freight and storage against the actual spare schedule rather than assuming the package will fit unused container space. FBM Sourcing is your sourcing partner in China: it holds no inventory and has no product range of its own.

FBM Sourcing builds these allowances into every complete hotel FF&E package we consolidate for hotel, apartment and mixed-use projects in the US, Australia, Europe and the Caribbean. This guide goes deeper than a headline figure: how the ratio changes by product category, why discontinuation risk sets the allowances, what attic stock actually costs against a re-order, and when it should ship.

• Soft goods: attic stock of fabric by the meter plus finished drapery panels and cushion covers per room type.
• Casegoods and seating: spares on high-wear components, not whole furniture units.
• Lighting: spare shades plus a stock of matched bulbs and LED drivers.
• Timing: price spare quantities with the original order and compare availability, minimum quantities, freight and finish matching for a later re-order.
• Footprint: attic stock is loaded into the final container with the main order, not shipped separately.

What Is Attic Stock and Why Does Every Hotel Project Need It?

Attic stock is the reserve of FF&E materials and components a hotel holds on site to repair and replace items after opening — named for the storage attic it traditionally lived in, and today usually a coded shelf in a back-of-house storeroom. It exists because hotel FF&E takes damage from day one of operation: drapery gets stained, chair fabric tears, drawer runners fail, lampshades dent. Most hotel brand FF&E standards treat attic stock as a handover deliverable, and an owner who opens without it discovers the gap the first time housekeeping reports a stained bed runner with no replacement in the building.

The reason attic stock must be planned at procurement stage — not bought later — is that hotel FF&E is custom-produced. The fabric was dyed for your order, the casegoods were built to your shop drawings, the lampshades were made in your specified finish. None of it sits on a shelf anywhere waiting to be re-ordered in ones and twos. A furniture sourcing agent who has handed over hotel packages will raise attic stock at purchase-order stage precisely because the spares can be priced alongside the original order and compared with a later replacement quotation.

How Much Attic Stock per FF&E Category?

One mistake to avoid is applying one flat allowance across the package. The right allowance differs by category because failure modes differ by category.

Soft goods — usually the largest allowance in the package. Drapery, cushion covers, bed runners and upholstery fabric are the items that stain, tear and fade first in hotel operation. Order the allowance in two forms: finished pieces (spare drapery panels and cushion covers per room type, so housekeeping can swap same-day) and raw fabric by the meter for future reupholstery. Quantities of spare drapery sets per room type and meters of each principal upholstery fabric are agreed with the owner at order stage.

Casegoods — spares on components, not complete units. A wardrobe rarely fails as a wardrobe; its drawer runners, hinges, and door fronts fail individually. Spare complete casegoods are bulky, expensive and mostly unnecessary — the exception being the most damage-prone freestanding pieces (luggage benches, desk chairs), where some projects add a small number of complete units. The component list should come straight from the factory’s own bill of materials: runners, soft-close hardware, adjustable feet, spare door and drawer fronts in the finished color, and headboard panels.

Seating — spare fabric plus wear parts. For upholstered seating the attic stock is mostly fabric: enough of each cover fabric to reupholster a small share of the chairs, plus glides, legs and caster sets. Reupholstery in the original fabric is a routine maintenance job; reupholstery in a near-match fabric is a visible patchwork across the guest floors.

Lighting — spare shades, plus drivers and bulbs. Shades dent and discolor faster than fixtures fail, and LED drivers fail far more often than the fittings they power. A stock of matched drivers and bulbs in the specified color temperature prevents the classic post-opening problem of one warm-white lamp in a row of cool-white ones. Where fixtures are certified for 120V (US) or 220–240V (Australia/Europe), spares must carry the same certification as the main order.

Finishes and touch-up — small but disproportionately useful. Factory-matched touch-up kits, stain markers in the casegoods finish, spare handles and trim. These cost almost nothing at production time and are unobtainable in a matching finish afterwards.

Building materials in mixed packages — treat overage as attic stock. Many hotel and apartment packages sourced through FBM Sourcing combine FF&E with building materials, and the same logic applies with different numbers. Tiles and stone are ordered with an overage on top of the measured quantity — partly for cutting waste during installation, partly because ceramic tiles are produced in shade batches that later runs will not match, which makes the leftover boxes the de facto attic stock. Engineered flooring follows the same rule, and door hardware should include spare handle sets and hinges in the specified finish. The uninstalled surplus should be inventoried and shelved with the FF&E spares at handover rather than treated as site waste — a few boxes of tiles from the original batch are worth more to the maintenance team than any future re-order.

Why Discontinuation and Dye-Lot Risk Set the Ratios

Plan for the possibility that materials, finishes or collections may change before a future repair is needed. Check current availability and re-order terms with each supplier. Retain labelled samples and batch information so replacement proposals can be compared with the original goods.

The same logic applies in wood and metal. Veneer is matched in batches; a headboard panel produced later from a different flitch will not match the wardrobe beside it. Plating and powder-coat finishes drift between runs. And custom re-orders carry minimums: custom-dyed fabric carries a mill minimum per color, often far above what a repair needs. Attic stock is how a project converts these manufacturing realities from a future crisis into a line item. This is also why the allowance must be specified during production — the window in which matching material exists closes when the production run ends.

What Does Attic Stock Cost Compared With a Re-Order?

Ask for a priced spare schedule alongside the main order. Confirm unit costs, packing dimensions, shipping space and any separate handling charges. The load plan determines whether the spares fit the same shipment; record their storage and handover arrangements at destination.

For a later re-order, obtain a fresh quotation for the actual quantity, current materials, minimum order and shipping method. Compare that quotation with the original spare proposal without assuming one is always cheaper. Check storage space against the packed spare schedule. Our hotel furniture budget guide places these items within the wider procurement budget.

Should Attic Stock Ship With the Main Order?

Yes — always in the same containers as the main production run, never as a deferred “after opening” purchase. Shipping together guarantees the spares come from the same production batch (same dye lot, same veneer flitch, same plating run), which is the entire point of holding them. It also means the spares arrive before the hotel opens, coded and labeled for the storage room, rather than competing for attention during the chaos of soft opening.

Practically, attic stock is small next to the main package — it occupies void space in the final container rather than adding freight. Each attic stock carton should carry the same item codes as the main order plus an “ATTIC” suffix on the packing list, so the install crew routes it to back-of-house instead of a guest floor. The attic stock allowance is confirmed at purchase-order stage, produced with the main run, and packed at consolidation.

How a Sourcing Agent Builds Attic Stock Into the Package

A complete hotel package is produced by several specialized factories, which means attic stock is not one decision but a dozen small ones — a fabric allowance at the mill, a component list at the casegoods factory, a shade count at the lighting workshop. The china sourcing agent consolidating the package is the only party positioned to make all of them at the right moment, because the agent writes the purchase orders.

FBM Sourcing handles it in four steps: the attic stock schedule is drafted per category alongside the spec book; allowances are written into each factory’s purchase order at placement; quantities are verified during the pre-shipment inspection — one inspection performed by FBM Sourcing’s own QC team at the factory once bulk production is finished, documented in photos and video; and the spares are consolidated, coded and loaded into the final container with a dedicated section on the packing list. The owner receives a one-page attic stock register at handover listing every spare item, its code, its quantity and its shelf location — the document the maintenance team will use for the next decade.

Attic stock covers you after handover; installation wastage is ordered up front — here is what wastage allowance to order for tiles, stone and flooring.

Get a China Procurement Quote for Your Project

If you are specifying or budgeting an FF&E package for a hotel, apartment or mixed-use project, FBM Sourcing will build the attic stock schedule into the package from the first quotation — category-specific allowances, batch-matched spares, and a coded handover register. Submit your drawings or FF&E schedule, room count and mix, destination port and target timeline through our China procurement inquiry page, and our team will review your requirements and get back to you.