MEASURE · PLAN · BUY
Plan what to buy for your home project
Enter your measurements and the numbers on the label; get the packages to buy, the leftover and a printable shopping list.
Free to use, no sign-up, and everything runs in your browser.
- 1Measure the space
- 2Choose materials
- 3Take a shopping list
Indoor project calculators
See all: Indoor project calculators- Room refresh planner Paint and flooring from one set of measurements.
- Paint calculator Walls, ceilings, coats, primer and cans per color.
- Flooring calculator Boxes, waste allowance, underlay and baseboard.
- Wallpaper calculator Drops per wall, pattern repeat and rolls to buy.
- Tile calculator Boxes, spare tiles, trim, adhesive and grout.
- Board and batten calculator Batten spacing, positions and strip lengths.
- Curtain fabric calculator Widths, cut drops, lining and meters or yards to buy.
Outdoor project calculators
See all: Outdoor project calculators- Mulch, soil and gravel calculator Beds, circles, raised beds and pots to bags or bulk.
- Deck, fence and patio stain calculator Decks, railings, fences, patios and driveways to cans of stain or sealer.
- Exterior paint calculator House walls, gables, coats and gallons or buckets to buy.
- Lawn seed, turf and feed calculator Lawn areas to packs of seed, turf rolls and bags of feed.
Measuring and buying guides
See all: Measuring and buying guides- How to measure a room Walls, floors, openings and L-shaped rooms.
- Paint coverage and coats Why coverage is per coat and primer is separate.
- How pack rounding works Exact amount, allowance, packages and leftovers.
- How to measure stairs Treads, risers, nosings and landings for a runner or paint.
- How much caulk to buy Bead length and bead size to cartridges, with a table per bead width.
- How much crown molding to buy Ceiling edge, corners and equal pieces per wall to whole lengths.
- How much paint for a ceiling Ceiling area from the floor, coats and cans per color.
- Square and cubic units Square and cubic feet, yards and meters, and depth to cubic yards.
How to choose the right calculator
Start with the kind of job. For a room, the room refresh planner is the easiest entry because one set of measurements gives you both paint and flooring. If you need only one material, open the paint, flooring, tile, wallpaper, board and batten or curtain fabric calculator directly. For the garden there are calculators for mulch, soil and gravel, for lawn seed, turf and feed, for deck and fence stain, and for exterior paint. If you have not measured yet, read how to measure a room first; it takes a few minutes and avoids a second trip to the store.
What every calculator does with your numbers
Each calculator works in the same four steps. It finds the exact amount from your measurements, adds the waste allowance you choose, rounds up to whole packages (cans, boxes, rolls or bags), and shows what will be left over. Missing or impossible input is reported as a problem to fix and is never treated as zero. Packages are never rounded down, because running short is the costly outcome.
A worked example you can check by hand
A room of 4.0 m × 3.5 m with 2.4 m walls has a perimeter of 2 × (4.0 + 3.5) = 15 m and a gross wall area of 15 × 2.4 = 36 m². A door of 1.6 m² and a window of 1.32 m² leave 36 - 2.92 = 33.08 m² to paint. Two coats at an example coverage of 10 m² per liter need 33.08 × 2 / 10 = 6.616 liters, or about 7.28 liters with a 10% allowance, which is three 2.5 liter cans. The floor of 14 m² becomes 15.4 m² with the same allowance, and boxes of 2.2 m² give exactly 7 boxes. Every calculator shows these steps, so you can compare them with your own arithmetic.
Read the results as estimates
The starting values in each calculator are editable examples, not a manufacturer's figures. Replace them with the coverage and package size printed on the product you are buying. The results are quantity estimates from your own measurements; they do not say anything about structure, wiring, plumbing or building permits. What you type is worked out in your browser and is not sent to a server.