How to Estimate the Materials for a Desk Hutch

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Jon on behalf of Expert Village. In this video clip I'll be showing you how we would estimate for our materials. Now, since I'm building this hutch primarily out of oak plywood, I went ahead and drew an oak plywood sheet, which would measure 4 feet by 8 feet and I've input some of my components into that. Now if you don't have a computer program that can do this, you can use graph paper, it works just as well. As you can see I'll need about 1 1/2 sheets of plywood. On my first sheet I can get my top and the shelf out of it, in addition to one of those skirts and my back supports. Now on my other piece of plywood I'll be able to get my two sides out of it and the long skirt board that I have. So I'll need two full sheets of plywood, because it's not economical just to buy a half sheet and I'll also need a few boards to make up for all of the trim that I'm going to put around the plywood so that'll make it look like one big board and not just plywood."