How much flooring do I need?

Start with the floor area

Measure the length and width of each room in feet and multiply them. Add the rooms together for a total square footage. For an irregular space, split it into rectangles and add those.

Measure the floor, not the skirting line, and include areas under furniture you intend to move.

Flooring is sold by the carton, not the square foot

Each product covers a fixed area per carton, which is listed on its product page where verified. Your order is rounded up to whole cartons, so the amount delivered is rarely exactly the amount measured.

This matters more with large-format planks, where a single carton covers more ground and rounding up moves the total further.

Order more than you measure

Some material is always lost to cuts at walls, around doorways and at the ends of rows. The industry rule of thumb is to add roughly 5-10% to the measured area, toward the higher end for diagonal layouts or rooms with many corners.

It is also worth keeping a small quantity spare after the job. Matching a discontinued colour later is difficult, and a spare carton is cheaper than a partial re-floor.

Confirm the final quantity with Oakline before ordering — that check is part of preparing a quote.

Do the arithmetic here

Oakline has calculators for the four sums this guide describes: floor area with a waste allowance, how many cartons that comes to, cove base lengths, and adhesive quantity.

The carton figures come from Oakline’s own catalog rather than a generic average, so the number you get matches what actually ships.