How to Measure Area in Square Feet for Your Projects
When you're planning to buy paint, carpet, or other materials, figuring out the square footage of the space you intend to cover helps you decide how much to buy.
By Jamie Scott8 steps
If you're planning to purchase paint, carpet, or another material, calculating the square footage of the area you plan to cover will let you figure out how much to buy. Finding square footage involves some math, but with a calculator nearby, you can quickly get the hang of measuring spaces in your home. Remember that square footage refers to the total area covered; a single square foot is a square that is one foot long on each side.
Step 1
Use your tape measure to find the length of the area. Write down the measurement in inches.
Step 2
Use your tape measure to find the width of the area. Write down the measurement in inches.
Step 3
Take the inches from Step 1 and multiply them by the inches from Step 2. This gives you the area in square inches.
Step 4
To change square inches to square feet, divide the square inches by 144 (since one square foot equals 12 inches by 12 inches). The result is your room's area in square feet.
Step 1
Use your tape measure to measure the diameter of the circle—the distance across it from one side to the other—in inches.
Step 2
Take the diameter and divide it by 2. That number is the radius.
Step 3
Perform this multiplication:
Radius x Radius x 3.14
The result is the circle's area in square inches.
Step 4
Divide the number from Step 3 by 144 to get the area in square feet.
