How to Estimate Wallpaper and Border Roll Amounts

Measuring Before Estimating Wallcovering Needs

The most important step in estimating wallcovering is accurate measurements. Use a yardstick or steel tape measure, never a cloth tape measure. Take measurements in feet rounding off to the next highest half foot or foot. Draw a room diagram showing doors, windows and ceiling height. If a wall is unusually broken up with a fireplace, built-in bookcases, etc., a diagram with detailed measurements will be beneficial in figuring square footage of wallcovering needed.

Measure wall height from floor to ceiling. Exclude baseboards and moldings. Measure length of each wall including doors and windows. Find the total square feet of the wall(s) by multiplying ceiling height by total wall length. Subtract areas that will not be covered. (Standard doors are about 3 x 7 feet or 21 square feet; standard windows about 3 x 4 or 12 square feet.)

These calculations give the total number of square feet to be covered. Using this the number of rolls or linear yards of wallcovering can be determined.

For example:

In the above figure, each wall is 12' long with an 8' ceiling. Multiply 12 x 8 = 96 square feet for each wall, then multiply 96 x 4 (since there are four walls with 96 square feet each)= 384 total square feet for the room.

Metric Single Roll

Repeat Length Usable Yield
0" to 6" 25 sq. ft.
7" to 12" 22 sq. ft.
13" to 18" 20 sq. ft.
19" to 23" 18 sq. ft.

Ceiling height X wall length = square feet

Square Foot Area Method

Using the above diagram as an example, figure the amount of wallcovering that will be needed to hang the room. The figure of 384 square feet has not taken into account the square footage of the doors and windows. Subtract the actual square footage of each opening - 21 square feet for the door, and 12 square feet for each of the windows. 384 square feet - 45 square feet (21 + 12 + 12 = 45) = 339 square feet of wallspace that will be covered with wallcovering. If you are using a wallcovering with a pattern repeat of 8 inches, figure that each metric single roll will contain 22 square feet of usable wallcovering, 339 square feet (the amount of wallspace from above that will be hung) divided by 22 square feet (from Usable Yield Chart) which equals 15.4, or round up to 16 metric single rolls that will be needed to hang the example toom (8 metric rolls).

The equation would look like this:

384 sq. ft. (room size) -21 sq. ft. (one standard door) -12 sq. ft. (one standard window) -12 sq. ft. (one standard window)

=339 sq. ft. of wallspace that will be hung

339 sq. ft. / 22 sq. ft. = 15.4 msr to hang the room, rounded up to 16 msr.