How to Calculate Board Feet for a Ceiling

You can install a wood ceiling as a transition from a basic drywall ceiling in a remodel or when building a new home. The wood ceiling material ranges from an inch to a foot in width, depending on your needs. To install a wood ceiling in your home, you must first determine how much square footage of board you'll need to cover the entire area, using a tape measure and basic math skills.

Tape measure
Wood width
Paper and pencil
Calculator (optional)

Instructions

- 1
  Measure the ceiling perpendicular to the wood course direction in inches, using a tape measure. Divide this number by the width of the board you're using to determine how many courses of board you'll need to span the entire ceiling.
- 2
  Measure the length of the room in inches to determine how long each course of wood will be across the ceiling.
- 3
  Multiply the board course length indicated in Step 2 by the number of courses of wood determined in Step 1 to calculate the total inches of wood you'll need to cover the entire ceiling.
- 4
  Divide the total inches of wood determined in Step 3 by 12, which is the number of inches in a foot, to determine how many feet of wood you'll need to cover the entire ceiling.

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