Many homeowners are intimidated at the thought of measuring up their rooms
for new furniture and decorations. Knowing how to measure your rooms is one of those fundamental skills that has to
be learned if you want to make home repairs with confidence. So, like any other
skill, this should be practised and mastered if you want to get good at it. That’s
exactly what we’ve done over more than two decades in the building trade. By
measuring rooms on every job we’ve undertaken (including fitting wardrobes), we
have developed a tried and tested system for size measurement that will work
for anyone and how to measure your rooms.
The first step is picking up the right tools. The most important is a steel tape
measure (also known as builder’s tape). Steel being stronger than fibreglass
ones, it can withstand higher tensions giving you more accurate measurements.
There’s also a good chance that your steel tape is longer than most fibreglass
ones, giving you a better range of length for any job.
This article describes the process how to measure your rooms in detail and then gives
some tips on how to measure specific areas such as coves, bay windows and
fireplaces. The great thing about our method is its simplicity yet accuracy means
it can be used by anyone (no matter where they live or what language they
speak)
When measuring rooms there are two ways to take measurements; inside-
outside or outside-inside. Let’s take an example from one of our recent jobs –
converting an attic into bedrooms for a family with 3 young children. The new
parent’s knew that the original coving was not suitable for a child’s bedroom and
decided to install coving they had chosen themselves.
How To Measure Coving in your Cheshire Home
The first thing we did was measure the coving, using our outside-inside method.
We took away the coving’s thickness from the inside measurement of each room
in order to see how much wall space there would be when it was taken down
(the coving came of easily because it was nailed directly onto the plasterboard).
The results were as follows:
Bedroom 1 – 2m 107cm (with coving) reduced by 76mm = 2m 011cm
Bedroom 2 – 3m 158cm (with coving) reduced by 104mm = 3m 054cm
Bedroom 3 -2m 226cm (with coving) reduced by 76mm = 2m 150cm
By using this method we can determine how much wall space is needed for
coving as opposed to plaster. This could be important if you need to take out
coving, measure the area accurately and then buy coving that fits perfectly. It
also makes sure that there’s no wasted space between coving at each room
corner.
For all other size tasks we used our inside-outside method (which is an easier
task because it doesn’t require any calculation). We did this by measuring from
the floor up on both sides of each wall and dividing them in half to see what
height it was for the coving*. *NB: always remember that coving is usually a
maximum of 2-3 cms thicker than your coving to allow for coving compound and
coving pins. If you’re planning on fitting soundproofing or fire resistant coving,
this thickness might increase further so always check product specifications
before buying.
Here’s what the measurements from our attic conversion looked like:
Bedroom 1 – 205cm (to ceiling) reduced by 76mm = 129cm
Bedroom 2 – 305cm (to ceiling) reduced by 104mm = 201cm
Bedroom 3- 170cm (to ceiling) reduced by 76mm = 94cm
Again, all we’ve done is divide these heights in half and used them as our
finished coving height to get an estimate of how much coving we should buy.
As long as you keep these simple but accurate measurements in mind when
buying coving, it will always fit perfectly first time!
But measuring ceiling isn’t the only thing that our method can be used for. It is
applicable to every room size measurement and repair task you could think of
such as fitting furniture or doors, flooring (laminate, vinyl, wood etc.) and even
ceiling lights and blinds. The beauty of using a steel tape measure is its
versatility; not many tools are so capable for so many different tasks .
How to Measure Ceilings in your Cheshire Home
When fitting coving on ceilings, the ceiling should always be measured with a
level from one side of the room all the way along to the far wall (particularly
important if there are any doors or windows to work around). It’s also worth
checking that coving won’t join up with anything like beams or floorboards
before buying coving. We did this job recently where we had gaps between
coving and flooring which would have been avoided by measuring accurately
beforehand!
How to Measure Doors in your Cheshire Home
This one might seem obvious but everyone forgets it; don’t measure the width of
doors as they are now, measure them when they’re fully open! If you don’t,
there’s a good chance that coving will get damaged trying to squeeze past an
object that could have been avoided with a little planning. We made this mistake
in our attic conversion and it cost us time, money and lots of swearing!
How to Measure Flooring in your Cheshire Home
There are two ways to measure flooring. If you’re replacing carpet with laminate
or tile, simple use the existing floor measurements and that’s all! On the other
hand if it’s vinyl flooring you are fitting over, measure the width of each plank and
divide that into your room size (don’t forget to deduct something for any door
frames). For example if a room measures 3m x 1.5m with laminate flooring
bought that was 1m wide, then you also need to make sure there’s enough area
to cover the width of each plank. So divide 1m into 3m and you’re left with 0.33
m to cover two floorboards, so we would need cut laminate flooring that was at
least 0.5m wide (0.5 x 2 = 1) or an extra piece of laminate flooring for every third
row to give us a total width of 0.5m (3/3 x 1 = 1).
You can also use this same method to calculate how much flooring you will need
for any room as long as you know the dimensions inside and out, which is easy
using our method on how to measure your rooms.
