Crates, Stone and Teak: Furnishing a Desert Home Above Palm Springs

Most furniture arrives in a carton. This collection arrived in custom wood crates and unlabeled boxes, and it waited eight months for its house. For a design studio's hillside home above Palm Springs, our team collected, stored and then installed 229 pieces over four consecutive days in February 2025, from the stone side tables to the last ceramic bowl in the kitchen.

The project at a glance

Eight months earlier: 86 boxes with no labels

The project started with a pickup, not a delivery. In June 2024 our crew collected the first part of the collection from a site in the Coachella Valley, on a 53-foot truck. It came to 86 boxes, and none of them carried a label or a list.

A shipment like that is easy to lose track of over months in storage. So our team logged the 86 boxes with photos in the warehouse inventory, giving the studio a record of exactly what we were holding for the house. The studio's own specification named the room each piece was meant for: living room, den, master bedroom, pool terrace, cabana and so on.

The collection then stayed in our Indio warehouse for more than eight months, until the house was ready.

Why so many crates

By install week the warehouse also held the crated part of the collection. The heaviest and most fragile pieces traveled that way: headboards, a footboard and bed parts, nightstands, stone benches, a sectional sofa, round tables, a stone table, five volcanic-stone side tables, a large ceramic jar, an antique pot, even a section of cement pipe.

Crates are slower to handle than cartons. They need a pallet jack or several people, they have to be opened with tools, and the empty crate is often as large as what it protected. They also have to go somewhere after the install.

A plan in layers

With 229 pieces going into one house, the install was planned in layers rather than as a single truckload. The large furniture and the beds went first, so each room had its anchor pieces. The outdoor furniture and the rest of the seating came next. The styling, from plates to pillows, went last, once the furniture it sits on was in place. A fourth day was kept for finishing and for taking the crates away.

Day one: the crates and the beds

The photos from the first morning show the crates staged at the warehouse and moved onto the truck with a pallet jack, each one marked FRAGILE. The load was 39 pieces, most of them crated: three headboards, the bed frames, nightstands, stone benches, coffee tables, table bases, the sectional and the rugs and lamps for the main rooms.

At the house, the crates were opened and the pieces moved in on moving blankets. By the end of the day a pale gray sectional sat on a chunky natural rug in one of the sitting rooms.

Day two: the terraces

The second load was the largest, 112 pieces, and the day ran into the evening. Much of it went outside. On the covered terrace, two cushioned loungers went onto dark outdoor rugs beside the stone fireplace, looking out over the valley. A pair of long teak loungers went onto the gravel garden, and a teak dining table and its chairs onto the terrace beside the house. A round woven daybed in deep purple went under an oval opening in a concrete wall.

Inside, the volcanic-stone side tables came out of their crates, along with dining chairs, lounge chairs, armchairs and lanterns.

Day three: the finishing layer

The third load, 78 pieces, was almost all styling. Stacks of plates and bowls, cups, kitchen utensils, a coffee press, travertine bowls, ceramic jars and vases, books, pillows, throws, trays, baskets and more rugs.

Small items like these are easy to lose on a large job, so they traveled in numbered boxes matched to the inventory. The photos from that afternoon show the living room set: a pale gray modular sectional, round black wood coffee tables, a wool rug and a black sculptural pendant above.

Day four: no truck, just finishing

There was no load on the fourth day. The crew came with tools only, to place the last pieces, clear the packaging and take the empty crates back for disposal. The photos from that day show a round fire bowl in dark stone dressed with gray stones, a natural stone basin set outside, a pair of wood bar stools, and a long walnut dining table with its chairs. The crew removed the packaging and took the crates with them.

What the studio did next

About two weeks after the install, the studio got in touch to offer a tip for the install crew.

What made it work

• A record from the first day. Unlabeled boxes were logged with photos at the warehouse, so nothing was a mystery eight months later.
• Storage for as long as the house needed. The collection waited in Indio until the rooms were ready, not in a garage on site.
• Loads planned in layers. Furniture first, outdoor next, styling last, each truck matched to what the house could take that day.
• Crates handled start to finish. Opened at the house, and taken away on the last day.

If your pieces arrive in crates, or need one before they travel, our crating services page explains how we build crates in-house. Our Palm Springs receiving warehouse page covers receiving at Indio, our furniture storage page covers holding a collection until the house is ready, and our white glove installation page describes install day. Designers can see how routing every vendor to one address works on our receiving warehouse for interior designers page.