Now take your area footage and based on width of the board chosen, calculate how many boards you will need for your project. Shown below is a chart for FACE coverage on tongue and groove boards with a 3/4" to 1" allowance for the fit.

For example: You have a closet with 4 walls measuring 3 feet on the right and left with 8 feet across the back and front.

You would have 3 + 8 + 3 + 8= 22 feet times 8 feet from floor to ceiling. Using the area calculator, you will need 176 feet of coverage to do the job. Looking at the chart, you can choose to set your boards either vertically or horizonally. Since the closet is 8 feet across the back and 8 feet tall, you can easily choose 8 foot boards for less waste. There is left to decide what width of board to use.

Your taste and how you want to install the boards is the factor here. 8 and 10 inch boards go in faster, but you might like the look of 4 or 6 inches boards on the wall. Say you choose to do the job in 6 inch boards. There are 3.3 feet of FACE coverage (5 inch Face on a 6 inch board) in the tongue and groove style of boards for 6" x 8' boards. Divide the 176 feet needed by 3.2 of coverage provided and you get approximately 55 to 57 boards needed to cover your area. Now visit our PRICES page to an idea of how much investment you will have in your project in lumber.

Tongue and Groove Coverage
By Length in Feet
		8	10	12	14	16
4 inch/3"face	4	2	2.5	3.	3.5	4
6 inch/5" face	6	3.3	4	5	6	6.6
8 inch/7" face	8	4.6	6.0	7	8	9.3
10 inch/9 " face	10	5.9	7.3	9.0	10.6	11.9

AREA (from calculator above) divided by factor from chart = number of boards needed.

Our greatful thanks to Robert for the use of his area calculator. Please visit the Online Conversion site for more great calculations. This page and all of its contents is protected by © Copyright 1997-2006 Robert Fogt and may not be reproduced, sold or otherwise used in any application without express written permission.