Measuring 101

How to measure for carpeting and vinyl

When we measure for broadloom carpet or sheet goods, which is vinyl that comes in rolls, there’s more to consider besides the square footage of a room.  Direction, seam placements and the number of seams, are all things we need to think about. It’s best to have a sketch of the rooms, with measurements of the corresponding walls.  

With any type of roll goods, you never change direction of the carpet when creating a seam.   That can produce more waste than if you are putting down a product where only the square footage matters like tile and hardwood.  Diagrams don’t have to be to scale. What we need to know are the direction patterns in carpeting and vinyl need to go so we don’t change the grain of the product from one room to the next.  

When products have pattern repeats, additional material will be needed for the project.  This can be complicated, so the best thing is to have your salesperson or installer have the product information about the repeat available with your diagram to assist in determining seam placement and calculations

In many cases roll goods are precut in our warehouse to make the sizes more manageable for the installers. That means this information helps not just with getting the amount of product you need right, but also preparation for the installation. 

Here’s more information on how to measure:

How to measure flooring from WiKiHow. 

A video on how to measure flooring from The Fixer.  

How many rolls of wallpaper will I need?

Wallpapering is a lot less daunting than it used to be. Whether you’re working with our designers and installers, or doing it yourself, you want to know how many rolls you’ll need. 

Start by measuring the length of each wall you plan on wallpapering. Find the height of the walls you’re putting wallpaper on.  Convert your measurements to feet or meters. Multiply the total length of the walls by their height to find the surface area. Calculate any sloped walls if you have any.

For complete tips, here’s the Wikihow tutorial about measuring for wallpaper.