It’s a scenario no one wants: the day you’ve had blocked off in your calendar for months – the big floor renovation – finally rolls around, but disaster strikes… you haven’t purchased the right amount of material. Annoying is an understatement.
A real spanner in the works, it can delay your DIY job by a few hours at best, or leave you red-faced in front of your installers at worst. Getting your calculations wrong is never a fun experience – I know it firsthand. Decades in the game, we’ve seen almost every flooring mishap you can shake a stick at, under- and overestimating the amount of material you need included.
Which is exactly why this easy-to-follow guide exists. In it, I’ll be drawing on my experience fitting floors in and around York to show you how to measure any room for new flooring using the most efficient method possible. So next time you’re renovating, you can rest assured your estimates are spot on.
Skip to:
- Why Anything Less Than Precise Won’t Cut It
- How to Measure a Room for New Flooring: A Foolproof Method from Award-Winning Installers
- Bonus Top Tips
- When to Call in Professional Floor Fitters
- Conclusion & Next Steps
- Frequently Asked Questions
Why Anything Less Than Precise Won’t Cut It
Although the availability of more budget-friendly flooring alternatives to the expensive stuff (think: solid wood and fancy tiles) has brought down the price of many options over the years, getting your measurements wrong still stings.
Overestimate, and you’ve unnecessarily ordered extra rolls or planks, which are a pain to get rid of. Underestimate, and you might not be able to get the job done on the day. Both, understandably, are the source of much stress among homeowners and ultimately hurt your pocket. Sorry to say it, but that’s not all. Miscalculating how much flooring you need, even by a tiny bit, can affect the final fit, leaving a lot to be desired with your underlay and trim.
Of course, these are only the personal impacts; if we’re to be responsible global citizens, we also need to consider the role of material waste – something that’s pretty consistently overlooked if we consult the UK Sustainable Flooring Alliance’s work. Yes, in 2021, 483,915 tons of waste was generated for carpet and textile flooring alone. Luckily, now, lots of this is being diverted from landfill to be recycled.
That said, it still rings true: when measuring your interiors for any new flooring, and working out how much underlay you need, accuracy is an absolute must for the best outcome on all of these fronts.
Though If You Do Get It Wrong, It’s Not the End of the World
In the interest of not being too fear-mongering, I wanted to share a hopeful anecdote from last year.
What happened was this: a customer booked us in for an installation of a gorgeous engineered wood floor for their new nursery, but – bang – we were hit by the realisation that there weren’t enough planks part-way through the job. Unfortunately, the homeowner had come up quite short with the measurements, which left them in a bit of a pickle.
Thank God, we had a few boxes of the same flooring spare, plus some snazzy black feature strips, so with a few extra hours and a good dose of creativity, we were able to create a completely custom floor for not too much added cost. Talk about a surprise install!
What’s the moral of the story? Well, even if disaster does strike, there are ways around the problem; either ordering more flooring when you underestimated your requirements, or selling on / giving away your extras. If you’re working with an experienced local installer, more often than not, they should be happy to help you out, and might have extra material on-hand like we did.
How to Measure a Room for New Flooring: A Foolproof Method from Award-Winning Installers
Measuring your flooring correctly is the prerequisite to any installation job. Without it, you can’t cut your sheet vinyl to size, lay your laminate, or order the right amount of your chosen engineered wood underlay, not to mention the flooring on top.
Here, I’m going to share the foolproof method we personally use to get our measurements as accurate as possible – no unnecessary waste to be seen here!
The Basics
As you’ve probably gathered, floor measuring mistakes aren’t as rare as you might assume. We’ve lost count of how many times we’ve been called in after a DIYer ended up a couple of square metres short because they forgot about a bay window.
The good news, however, is that this doesn’t have to be you – the process is simple, it just requires your due diligence. Which means double-, and if you’re still unsure, triple-checking.
Calculating Room Size
All it takes is a simple formula: length in metres (L) x width in metres (W) = area m2
To grab these measurements, you’ll need a tape measure and something to record your findings; your phone or a pen and paper will do.
As you measure the length of each wall to get the perimeter, make sure you’re going from edge to edge, right up against the wall, not just to the skirting. Also, don’t forget to account for any offcuts by adding an extra 5-10% to your number! This will ensure a proper fit.
Square & Rectangular Rooms
I’m happy to report that measuring a square or rectangular room couldn’t be easier. As I just shared, you simply measure the length and breadth of the space up to the walls, and plug those dimensions into the formula above. Then you add 5-10% of leeway for the usual wastage that happens during the installation.
For example, if I had a rectangular lounge that measured 5 by 6 metres in length and width, the area would be 30m2, meaning that I’d need 31.5-33m2 of flooring.
Irregular Shaped Rooms
I can tell what you’re probably thinking. What about awkward rooms with funny architectural features? After all, it’s rare that a room is a perfect square.
Well, we’ve fitted floors all over York – renovating Victorian terraces in Bootham chock-full of bay windows and new-build estates out in Poppleton with strange dimensions in the hallways – and even these irregular shapes can be tackled with relative ease.
If your room is irregular, I recommend splitting it into regular rectangular sections, whose areas you can work out quickly and add together. For instance, L-shaped rooms are easily broken down into two separate rectangles.
See in this example? You’d have a 6x4m section, with a 24m2 area plus a 3x3m section, equalling 9m2 – that’s a 33m2 room and 31.65- 36.3m 2 worth of material needed, depending on the type of floor.
Even if you have a more complex room, this method still stands. You might have to divide the room into many different shapes, but the end result is the same.
Here, though, I’d definitely sketch out the room or find a floor plan, if possible, as you want the dimensions to be spot on. This might include trickier shapes like semicircles to account for things like bay windows that stick out awkwardly. I talked about this in our laminate measuring guide, but it works for every flooring type: to find an estimate of the bay, you’ll need to work out the area of the semi-circle, so that’s…
π x r2 / 2 or, in normal speak, 3.15 times the radius (half of the straight edge of the semi-circle), then divided by two. With this jotted down, you can account for the additional space in your overall measurements.
Bonus Top Tips For…
Measuring Hallways, Stairs & Landings
Hallways and stairs can catch people out because they’re rarely as simple as they look. With hallways, make sure you measure the full length, including any little recesses or bits under door frames; it all adds up.
For stairs, measure one tread and one riser properly, then multiply by the number of steps, and don’t forget the width. Landings should always be measured separately, especially if they turn a corner. But if I’m honest, stairs are one of the easiest places to make a mistake, so if you’re unsure, it’s well worth getting them checked properly before you order.
Dealing With Obstacles
Fireplaces, chimney breast, fitted cupboards, radiator pipes, you name it: they all need working around, and guestimates won’t do you any favours. Measure right up to fixed points rather than trying to knock bits off in your head, because small errors can become unwanted gaps.
In older York houses, especially, the walls don’t tend to be the straightest, so it’s a good idea to measure in a few different places just to be sure. It’s also wise to allow a bit of extra material when you’re cutting around awkward shapes, as not every cut goes perfectly first time, sometimes even for experienced fitters.
Complex Laying Patterns, Like Herringbone
Herringbone and chevron floors look fantastic – we’ve fitted hundreds of them – but naturally, they create more waste with the increased number of boards. You’ll usually need at least 15-20% extra to allow for all the angled cuts, and it’s important to decide on your chosen pattern before you finalise your measurements. In rooms that aren’t perfectly square, which is common in older properties, those angles can exaggerate any small measuring error. As such, having a professional on hand is strongly recommended by me.
Future-Proofing Your Floors
The floors of busy family homes bear witness to hectic school nights, kids’ parties over the years, heeled guests getting ready for a night out, and the clattering paws of pets. So, it stands to reason that there’s going to be a few bumps and scratches along the way. Even something as innocuous as a home workout with a couple of dumbbells could spell wear and tear if you store the heavy weights on the floor, the boards sinking over time.
Thus, to future-proof your flooring, it’s worth buying some extra material that you can use for repairs later down the line. Stocking up proves especially handy if your specific design falls out of favour with stockists or is discontinued in the near future.
When to Call in the Professionals
Sometimes it’s best to bite the bullet and get someone in with a bit more experience. This is definitely the case if you’re renovating the flooring on the stairs, corridors, rooms with bay windows and alcoves, as well as older properties with uneven walls like those we see around central York.
The majority of reputable flooring fitters can provide a helping hand with the measurements and may even offer it as a service, or free of charge as part of the installation. I may be biased, but it’s the simplest way to get an impressive, professional fit and side-step potentially pricey mistakes.
Conclusion: Find Your Goldilocks Number & Get Ordering
See? It wasn’t so difficult to measure your room for new flooring, after all! All it takes is a bit of vigilance with the tape measure, a few visuals, double-checking, and a healthy dollop of perseverance for trickier rooms. Provided you keep your measurements to the widest length/width and remember the golden rule of 5-10% for wastage, you’re good to go.
So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to get in touch with your local flooring company to get the ball rolling.
