How to Calculate Square Footage of Walls & Ceiling

Knowing how to calculate the square footage of your walls and ceiling helps in decorating. Basic math tells you how much room you have for furniture, how much space you have for decorations and art work, how many gallons of paint or rolls of wallpaper you'll need for a wall treatment. Before you make any purchases, know your measurements and get a real concept of your room's physical space.

Tape measure
Pen/pencil
Notepad
Calculator

Instructions

- 1
  Measure one wall of a room horizontally, from corner to corner, using a standard tape measure.
- 2
  Move to the wall that is immediately perpendicular to the one you've just measured, and measure this wall in the same fashion. Write down each measurement on a notepad.
- 3
  Measure one wall vertically, from floor to ceiling.
- 4
  Multiply the height of the wall (measurement 3) by the length of one wall (measurement 1). Double the answer to get a square foot measurement. Write down the resulting answer.
- 5
  Multiply the height of the wall by the length of the other wall (measurement 2). Double the answer as you did in the previous step. Write down this answer next to the answer from Step 4.
- 6
  Add the two results together to get the total square feet for the walls in a four-wall room.
- 7
  Measure the ceiling in a straight line from one side of the room to the other, and write down the result.
- 8
  Measure the ceiling in a line opposite of the one you just measured, from wall to wall.
- 9
  Multiply the two results together, and double the answer to get the square feet for the ceiling.
- 10
  Add the square feet of the walls to the square feet of the ceiling to get a total amount for both.

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