A whole-house floor is usually bought in one order. Order too little and the second batch may come from a different production run, or the line may be discontinued. Order far too much and you are storing boxes for years. A careful measure is a quiet afternoon with a tape and a sketch. It also lets you compare quotes fairly, because you know roughly what the number on each one should be.
What you need
- A 25-foot tape measure, or a laser distance measure, which makes long rooms easier alone
- Graph paper or a printed floor plan if you have one from a purchase or permit
- A pencil and a calculator, or a phone spreadsheet
- A helper for long rooms if you are using a tape
If your house came with a plan set, use it only as a starting sketch. Plans rarely show closets accurately and often round dimensions, so measure anyway.
Step by step
- Draw the floor plan. Sketch each level and every space that will get the new floor: rooms, closets, hallways, entries, pantries, laundry. It does not need to be to scale, just complete.
- Break each space into rectangles. An L-shaped living room becomes two rectangles. A bay window becomes a small rectangle of its own. Write the letters on the sketch.
- Measure wall to wall at floor level. Measure each rectangle's length and width to the nearest inch, at the floor rather than at waist height, and into door openings to the middle of the door where the transition will sit. Older Puget Sound houses are often out of square, so measure both ends of a long room and use the larger number.
- Measure closets and hallways separately. They are small but they add up across a whole house, and their cuts make most of the waste.
- Leave out fixed cabinets and islands, but include the floor under the fridge, range and dishwasher opening.
- Count stairs and landings. Count each step, note any open sides, and measure each landing as floor. Stairs are covered with matching treads and nosings ordered by the step; the stairs and landings page explains how they are built.
- Convert and add. Convert inches to feet (divide by 12), multiply length by width for each rectangle and add them all up. That total is your measured area.
- Add waste. Multiply by 1.07 to 1.10 for a straight lay in open, square rooms, or by 1.12 to 1.15 for many small rooms, angled walls, or a diagonal or herringbone pattern.
- Round up to whole boxes. Divide by the square footage printed on the box for your product, and round up. Then add one or two boxes as spares to keep.
Getting the waste right
Waste is not mistakes. It is the offcuts that cannot be used elsewhere: the end of each row that is too short to start the next, the strips ripped to fit along the last wall, the pieces around door jambs, vents and stair edges. A floating floor also needs staggered end joints, usually with a minimum offset set by the manufacturer, which limits how you reuse short pieces.
What pushes waste up across a whole house:
- Many small rooms and closets. Each one starts and ends rows.
- Hallways that change direction. The planks keep one direction, so a turning hallway is cut more.
- Wide or long planks. Fewer pieces per box means each offcut is a larger share of it.
- Patterns. Diagonal and herringbone layouts waste noticeably more than a straight lay.
- Out-of-square rooms, common in pre-war houses in Seattle, Tacoma, Everett and Bremerton, which leave tapered rips along walls.
One open great room in a newer Snohomish or Kitsap County subdivision house wastes far less than the same square footage spread across a 1950s rambler's bedrooms and closets.
Ordering and storing the boxes
One lot. Ask the supplier for a single production lot for the whole order, and check the lot or run number on every label when it arrives, before you open anything. If the lots are mixed, ask for an exchange or plan to blend boxes from each lot across the rooms as you go.
Check the accessories at the same time. Matching stair nosings, reducers, T-moldings and end caps are often ordered separately and can take longer to arrive than the floor itself.
Store it right. Keep boxes flat, indoors, at living temperature, in or near the rooms where they will be installed, and follow the manufacturer's acclimation instructions. A damp garage in a Puget Sound winter is not indoors. The guide to floating floors and expansion gaps explains why the product needs to settle before it is locked together.
Keep the spares. Store one or two unopened boxes, with a photo of the label, for future repairs. On a whole-house floor that is the only reliable match if a plank is damaged later.
Returns. Ask about the supplier's return policy for unopened boxes before you order. Policies vary, and special-order lines are often not returnable.
What it costs
These are typical Puget Sound planning ranges, and they vary by county, product and the condition of the subfloor. The written quote after an in-home measure is the real number.
| Item | Typical range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Laminate, installed | About $4.50 to $9 per sq ft | Mid-grade AC4 product with normal prep |
| Rigid-core vinyl plank, installed | About $5.50 to $12 per sq ft | 20 mil wear layer, SPC lower, WPC higher |
| Stairs | About $75 to $200 per step | Treads, nosings, open sides |
| Laser distance measure | About $30 to $100 | Optional, but faster for long rooms |
Your own measure helps most when you compare quotes. If one quote's footage is far above yours, ask why; if it is far below, ask what was left out. The Puget Sound flooring cost guide breaks down what else goes on a whole-house quote, and the AC ratings and wear layers guide helps you choose the product before you price it.
When to call a professional
Measure yourself for budgeting and quote comparison, then let an installer confirm the order when:
- The house has several levels, stairs and landings, where nosings, transitions and plank direction need to be planned together.
- The subfloor is uneven, bouncy or damaged, or you are not sure what is under the carpet. Flatness work changes the schedule and sometimes the product choice; see subfloor repair and leveling.
- You want a diagonal, herringbone or mixed-width layout, where the waste and the cut plan are much harder to estimate.
- You are ordering a special-order or long-lead product that you cannot easily top up later.
- Old sheet vinyl, vinyl tile or black mastic sits under the carpet in a house built before about 1980. It can contain asbestos and should be tested before anyone disturbs it.
An installer measures every room at the in-home visit, checks the subfloor at the same time and writes the footage with waste on an itemized quote. The whole-house flooring page explains how a whole-house job is staged so you can stay in the house while it is done.
