You have hundreds of beautiful tiles to choose from for your remodeling project. Common tile materials include natural stone, unglazed ceramic, glazed ceramic, metal, porcelain, glass, vinyl and wood. Each material comes in many colors and several sizes, though 12- by 12-inch, 8- by 8-inch and 6- by 6-inch squares are the most common. Correctly estimating the amount of floor tile for your project is imperative because you want to buy all the tile at once so that it all comes from the same lot number in order to ensure consistent color.
Step One
Tile for Floor - Measure the length and width of the floor in inches using a tape measure.
Step Two
Multiply the two measurements together to get the area of the floor. For example, a floor 140 inches long and 120 inches wide has an area of 140 inches x 120 inches = 16,800 square inches.
Step Three
Divide your total by 144 inches, which is the area of a square foot. In this case, 16,800 divided by 144 = 116.66 or 117 square feet.
Step Four
Add 10 percent for waste if you plan to install the tile yourself. Ten percent of 117 square feet is about 12, so 117 + 12 = 129 square feet. Add 15 percent for waste if you plan to install the tile in a diagonal pattern or if the room has lots of jogs or corners.
Step Five
Calculate how many cartons of tile you need by dividing your total square footage by the number of square feet a carton of tile covers. This information is on the carton.
Step Six
Floor with Border - Measure all four sides of the room in inches. Include any jogs or curves. In the instance above, the room is 140 inches long by 120 inches wide. Two walls are 140 inches long, and two walls are 120 inches long, for a total of 520 inches.
Step Seven
Divide 520 inches by the length of the tile you are using. If you are using a 4- by 4-inch tile, divide 520 inches by 4 inches = 130. Add 10 percent for waste. The carton should say how many tiles are in it as well as how many square feet the tiles cover.
Step Eight
Figure out how many square feet your border tiles cover. If each tile is 4 inches by 4 inches, that's 16 square inches. In the example, 143 tiles x 16 square inches = 9 square feet, or 8.93 rounded up.
Step Nine
Subtract that number of square feet from your total square footage to get the amount of tile you need in the pattern that is not the border.