How to Measure Your Walls for Wallpaper

Why Measuring Matters

Ordering wallpaper without measuring carefully is the most common way projects go sideways. Too little, and you may not be able to match a later batch; too much, and you have wasted money. A few minutes with a tape measure saves both.

What You Need

Gather a tape measure, a pen, and paper or your phone's notes. If your room has many doors, windows, or angles, a quick sketch of each wall helps you stay organized.

The Basic Method

For most projects, you can work from total wall area:

• Measure the width of each wall and add them together to get the total width.
• Measure the height from baseboard to ceiling.
• Multiply total width by height to get the wall area.

Many retailers and brands, including Graham & Brown and Milton & King, offer calculators or guidance to translate measurements into rolls or panels, so keep your figures handy when you shop.

Accounting for Pattern Repeat

Patterned papers need extra material so the design lines up across strips. A larger pattern repeat means more waste, so always buy a bit more for these. As a rule of thumb, add a margin for repeats and for trimming at the top and bottom. When ordering custom murals from studios like Rebel Walls or Photowall, provide precise wall dimensions so the design is scaled to fit.

Smart Ordering Habits

Order all your wallpaper at once so it comes from the same production run, since slight color variations can occur between batches. Keep any leftover and the batch information in case of future repairs. And do not forget to subtract very large openings if you are trying to economize, though many people leave doors and windows in the calculation as a safety buffer.