Area, one side at a time

Walk round the edge.
We'll work out the area.

Rooms, gardens and patios are rarely neat rectangles. Pick a corner, say how long the first side is, turn, and keep going until you're back where you started. The shape draws itself as you go.

The quote form

Floor area (m²): ______

Your L-shaped kitchen

Good luck with that.

Pick a cornerTurn, measure, repeatAny straight-sided shape
Use the tool
fig. 01 — walk the walls
Area, one side at a time
A blank drawing with the start marked at the bottom left corner.Start

The drawing rescales as the shape grows. It's a sketch of your walk, not a floor plan.

What are you measuring in?
Where are you starting?

Heading up the left side, turning right at each corner.

m

The area

Appears when you're back where you started.

Pick a corner, say how far to the next one, and keep going.

    Worth knowing

    How a walk becomes an area.

    Enough to trust the number, or to spot when a turn went the wrong way.

    Walk it the way you'd walk it

    Any corner works. From the bottom left we assume you're heading up the left side and turning right at each corner, like walking round a room with the wall on your left. If you'd rather go the other way, change it before the first side.

    Corners that aren't square

    Most corners are 90°, so that's what the next turn assumes. For a bay window or an angled wall, change the angle for that corner: a wall cut off at 45° is two 45° turns, and the drawing shows you straight away if it went where you meant.

    How the area is worked out

    Each side you give moves the turtle that far in the direction it's facing. Once you're back at the start, the corners go into the shoelace formula, which works for any shape with straight sides. Close it early and any missing walls are worked out at right angles where the shape allows; a last side that lands just short simply has its gap joined.

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