Material Shopping List

Why the columns are what they are

Nothing is sold in square feet. It is sold in bags, boxes, sheets, rolls, gallons and bundles, and the number on the package is the only figure that decides what goes in the cart. So the sheet walks the arithmetic across the page:

• You need — the quantity from the calculator, in whatever unit the job is measured in. Square feet, cubic feet, linear feet.
• One package covers — copied off the actual bag or box in front of you, not from memory. This is the column that saves the trip.
• Buy this many — the first divided by the second, rounded up. Always up. You will have part of a package left over and that is not a mistake, it is a consequence of how the material is sold.
• Price each, and a tick box. The tick box matters more than it looks when you are three aisles in with a flat cart.

The check-before-you-leave list

Four things printed at the bottom, each of which has cost somebody a second trip:

Check the coverage on the package you are holding. Two boxes of "12 by 12 tile" from different manufacturers can hold different amounts — some 15 sq ft, some 11. Our figures are typical; the box in your hand is definitive.

Check the lot number matches on every box. Tile, carpet, flooring and wallpaper are made in batches and the batches do not match. A replacement box bought six months later will be visibly different.

Buy one spare package, deliberately, and do not open it. When a pipe leaks in four years, that box is the difference between a patch nobody notices and redoing the whole floor.

Ask the returns policy on unopened packages. If they go back with a receipt, buying one extra on purpose is cheaper than a second trip and a second delivery charge.

How to fill it in

Run your measurements through the calculator for each material, write the results into the first two columns at home, then fill the third column standing in the aisle with the package in your hand. That order is deliberate — the arithmetic is easier at the kitchen table and the coverage figure is only available at the shelf.