Square Footage Calulator

Whether you’re in remodeling mode trying to estimate drywall prices or planning to put it on the market, ultimately, you need to know the total square footage of your home. Back when I did drywall installation/repair for a living, I would measure hundreds of rooms a month and became pretty good at it.

Good news is finding out the total square footage of an area is quick, non-expensive and easy to do.

All you need is a measuring tape, pencil, paper and simple equations.

Square and Rectangle Rooms

Finding the total square footage of squares or rectangles is the easiest to do. Start by taking your measuring tape and find the length of your room, by simply hold the tape from one corner to another (like the image on the right). Write down the measurement and title it length.

Next you need the width of your room which would be the areas between your two length walls. After measuring them, write it down and title it width.

The equation for finding out the square footage of most rooms is simple. All you need to do is take the length of the room, multiply it by the width of that answer will be the total square footage of your measured room.

width * length = sqft.

To make it even easier, I’ve made a handy square footage calculator.

Square Footage Calculator for Squares and Rectangles

The calculator works in decimals ( ex. 10′ 5″ becomes 10.5 ).

Triangle Rooms

Square footage of triangles is a bit more difficult, but should come quickly. Instead of measuring the lengths and widths of rooms, we plan on measuring the base and height of our triangularly rooms (see image, left).

You will need to start by measuring the base of your triangle, typically, the base is the largest wall, but if all walls appear the same length, pick any one of them. Now get the height of the room by measuring from the center of our base to the peak of the triangle. Find a friend, if you need help.

Finally, we can now take both of our values and use the equation below to get the total square footage of our triangularly room or use the square footage calculator for triangles to easily figure out the total.

(base * height) / 2 = sqft.

Square Footage Calculator for Triangles

The calculator works in decimals ( ex. 10′ 5″ becomes 10.5 ).