How To Measure A Room

Hurrah! It’s time to buy a brand-new carpet for your home. But before you start getting giddy about choosing colours or picking patterns, the first thing you need to do is measure your room. To help, we’ve put together a simple measuring guide to teach you how to measure a room like a pro. It’s not as daunting as you might think, and remember, when you place an order with us, we’ll be happy to pop over and give your room(s) a free measurement check to be 100% sure of a perfect fit!

Things you’ll need to measure a room:

• Tape measure
• Pen or pencil (popped behind your ear to look extra professional)
• Piece of paper
• Ruler
• A helpful assistant - if you can find one!

1. Draw a floorplan of the room you want to measure, making sure to jot down any doorways, windows, or drop backs, including fireplaces, alcoves, and fitted cupboards.

• Tapi Top Tip Only include actual measurements – we'll add on any extra allowances later.

2. Measure the width of the widest part of the room using your tape measure, then measure across the room at a few different points as the walls might be a little uneven (especially in older houses), and note down these measurements on your plan.

• Tapi Top Tip If you can get someone else to help you hold the tape measure straight, measuring is so much easier. Trust us. Just watch those fingers!

3. Remember to measure all the way into any doorways and measure the widths of doorways and record all these measurements on your plan.
4. Measure the drop backs and jot these down, as well as any split levels or steps.

• Tapi Top Tip Take photos of your room from different angles – it really helps us to give you a more accurate quote.

5. All done! We told you it was a piece of cake! Now take your plan and photos into your local Tapi store where our team of flooring experts can give you an accurate free quote. Or, if you can’t get to a store, call our order line on 03330 150 501.

If you need help measuring your stairs, follow our how to measure stairs guide.

To make sure any quotes we give you are as accurate as possible, it’s helpful if you let us know a few extra bits of information about the room or rooms you’re measuring. It’s great if you can email or bring a few photos of the room along too or tell us if you have any inbuilt furniture that we need to fit the flooring around. All this extra information will help us provide you with a more accurate quote. Here’s a few questions we might ask you – so be prepared!

• What type of room is it? Tell us if it’s a bedroom, lounge, kitchen, bathroom, home office, secret laboratory, or a mix of all of them! Knowing how you use the room will help us to determine what floor types are suitable for the space.
• How many windows and doors are there in the room? Do the windows reach the floor? Where are the windows and doors? Are they internal or external? Are the windows north- or south-facing? Some flooring types don’t like heat or light, and dark coloured carpets are likely to fade over time in a room with lots of sunlight.
• Is there any built-in furniture in the room? It’s useful to know if there are kitchen islands and fitted wardrobes in the room that we need to fit the flooring around.
• What’s under the floor you’ll be replacing? Is it concrete or wood, new or old, level or uneven, stable or wobbly? The condition of your subfloor can affect the performance of your new floor, and some flooring types (like carpet and vinyl) are better than others at hiding the imperfections underneath.
• Are you measuring for multiple rooms? If so, write the name of the room on the drawing and, if possible, draw the connecting hallway or adjoining room. This helps us understand the layout of your home and which room is which, so we can plan the correct flooring or pile direction. And if you can also let us know what flooring is in the next room (if it’s not being replaced), we can choose the correct type of connecting thresholds.
   

A handy guide for measuring your room

To see our experts in action, watch our how to measure a room video.