SKETCH YOUR ROOM

Type your room's length and width below to see a scaled sketch with the area, then jump straight into a matching calculator with your dimensions already filled in. Works for any rectangular space — bedrooms, patios, decks, garden beds — and includes an L-shape mode for rooms with bump-outs and a Custom shape mode where you can drag any number of points around to match an irregular room or yard.

What the sketcher actually does

Most material calculators ask for length and width as numbers and you have to imagine the room in your head. The sketcher flips that — you see a scaled drawing of the space as you type, with corner handles you can drag to adjust dimensions live. Once it looks right, click any of the 14 calculator launcher buttons and the calc opens with your dimensions already filled in.

Calculators it pre-fills

The sketcher is wired into the calculators that take a length and width as their primary inputs:

• Walls / drywall: drywall (sheets), paint (gallons), insulation (batts)
• Flooring:hardwood (planks & boxes), carpet (square yards), vinyl (linear feet), tile (count)
• Outdoor: deck stain (gallons), paver (count), concrete (slabs and pads)
• Yard: mulch (cubic yards), gravel (yards or tons), sod (pallets), topsoil (yards)

Each launcher passes the sketched length, width, and L-shape cutout to the destination calc as URL parameters so the calc loads with your numbers ready. You can still edit them in the calc itself if needed.

Custom shape mode

For rooms or yards that aren't rectangles or simple L-shapes, switch to Custom shape. The sketcher opens with a four-point square — drag any corner to reshape it, tap the + button on any edge to insert a new point, and tap the ×next to a point to remove it (minimum 3 points). Edge lengths and the live area in square feet update as you drag, so you can match the actual footprint of a patio with a curved edge, a kitchen with an angled wall, a garden bed that tapers, or any other shape that doesn't fit a rectangle.

When you launch a calculator from custom mode, the calc opens with Shape set to “Custom (from sketch)” and the exact area and perimeter from your polygon pre-filled. The math uses those values directly rather than treating the shape as a rectangle, so wall-based calcs like drywall and paint also pick up the real perimeter.

L-shape mode

Real rooms aren't always rectangles. Switch to L-shape mode and the sketch shows a 6-sided polygon with a corner removed. Enter the cutout length and width, choose which corner to remove (top-left, top-right, bottom-left, bottom-right), and the area updates in real time — with the gross, cutout, and net area shown separately.

12 of the 14 area-based calculators understand the L-shape and apply the cutout automatically. The two exceptions are paint (walls only — perimeter is the same regardless of shape) and insulation (the launcher converts your dimensions into wall length so insulation handles the entry differently).

Real use cases

• Tile a bathroom floor: sketch the room, drop the cutout for the vanity recess, jump straight into the tile calculator with the net area filled in.
• Stain a deck:sketch the deck dimensions, jump into deck stain — the calc factors in railing area separately.
• Order mulch for a curving bed: approximate the bed as a rectangle (or break it into a couple of rectangles and run the calc twice), get the cubic yards.
• Paint or drywall an L-shaped great room:sketch the L, hit the calculator launcher — net area is automatic.

What the sketcher doesn't do

This is a project-input helper, not full CAD. It handles rectangles and L-shapes with one cutout. For complex multi-room layouts, irregular polygons, or detailed floor plans, you'll want a real layout tool (RoomSketcher, MagicPlan, AutoCAD, etc.). For 95% of residential project math — one room at a time, simple shapes — this is faster than firing up anything heavier.