Material calculators for DIY home & yard projects
How many gallons, boxes, bags or yards? HandyFigures answers the question every project starts with — with the math shown, whole-project shopping lists you can print, and no sign-up. Everything runs in your browser, and your project plans never leave your device.
Calculators
Paint Calculator
Work out how many gallons of paint you need across every room — walls, ceilings, trim and primer — and print one shopping list for the whole job.
Flooring Calculator
Calculate flooring boxes with waste built in for straight, diagonal or herringbone layouts, compare materials side by side, and print your order list.
Mulch & Soil Calculator
Convert beds and borders into cubic feet, cubic yards and bags of mulch, soil or gravel — then see whether buying bags or bulk delivery costs less.
Guides
Plain-language project math — coverage rates, waste percentages and bag-vs-bulk economics, each paired with a calculator.
How Much Mulch to Top Up Each Year: The 1-Inch Refresh Number
How much mulch to top up each year? A 1-inch refresh is about a third of a 3-inch install. Worked bag counts for 200, 400 and 600 sq ft, plus a probe rule.
What It Actually Costs to Mulch Your Yard Yourself: Bags vs Bulk
How much does it cost to mulch your yard, bags vs bulk? Three worked receipts at 400, 800 and 1500 sq ft, plus the square-footage crossover where bulk wins.
DIY Material Cost Break-Even: Bulk vs Bags and Gallon vs Quart Crossover Points
DIY material cost break-even, bulk vs bags: the crossover square footage for mulch, where a gallon beats 3 quarts, and the flooring extra-box math.
How Much Flooring for an L-Shaped Room (Split-Into-Rectangles Method)
How much flooring for an L-shaped room: split it into two rectangles, sum the square feet, add 10–12% waste, and round to boxes — worked end to end.
Flooring Two Connected Rooms as One Continuous Run: How Much to Buy
How much flooring for two rooms in a continuous run: worked sqft for living + hall + bedroom, why racking eats 12% waste, doorway fills, and dye-lot rules.
How Much Paint for a 2-Car Garage Interior? Walls, Ceiling, and Bare Block
How much paint for a 2 car garage interior? A 24x24 garage needs far more than the usual '2-3 gallons' once you add the ceiling and a bare block or drywall.
Why we built this
Every DIY project starts with the same uncomfortable guess at the store: is three boxes enough? Will two gallons cover it? Get it wrong in one direction and you're driving back mid-project with wet paint on the roller; get it wrong in the other and unopened boxes live in the garage for years. The big-box store calculators answer one room at a time and conveniently round up. HandyFigures does the arithmetic the way you'd do it on paper — whole project, real waste allowances, every step shown — so you can check the number instead of trusting it.
How it works
- Add your rooms or beds — the plan saves in your browser, so multi-weekend projects keep their numbers.
- Get quantities with the math visible, rounded the way stores actually sell things: gallons, quarts, boxes, bags, yards.
- Print one shopping list for the whole project. Nothing you type is uploaded — ever.