How to Get the Square Footage of a Room

The weapon of choice for calculating square footage.

Whether you're building, remodeling or just redecorating, knowing the square footage of a room can be important. Luckily, this calculation is simple. You may not even need a calculator, though it's good to have one to double-check calculations. Square footage is the same as finding the area of a square or rectangle in geometry; calculate square footage by multiplying the width by the length.

Things You'll Need

• Measuring tape
• Calculator

Instructions

1. Measure your room's width and length.

2. Convert feet and inches into feet with decimals. Take the inches that don't make a full foot and divide them by 12 to get your decimal. For example, a room that is 10 feet 6 inches long will be 10.5 feet.

3. Multiply the width and the length of the room to get its square footage. A 10.5-by-10.5-foot room is 110.25 square feet.

4. Once you calculate the square footage, you can calculate the decimals back into inches. Take the decimal number and multiply it by 12 to get the number of inches. From our example, 110.25 square feet is 110 feet 3 inches.

Tips & Warnings

• If your room is an odd shape, draw it out on a piece of paper and divide it into simple rectangles and squares. Find the area of each shape, and then add them together for the full square footage.

References

• Demesnes: How To Calculate Square Footage

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish