Step by step
How to choose what to renovate, surface by surface
A renovation is not one job. It is a floor, some walls and a ceiling, each wanting something different. Price them that way and the total is a sum of real decisions instead of a rate per square metre.
Free to use. Change any price to your own. What the estimator covers →
- 1
Select the room
Click it on the plan. The Details panel opens with three tabs: Floor, Walls, Ceiling.
- ·Each tab carries a badge with how many trades you have ticked on that surface.
- ·An outdoor zone — a patio, a balcony, a drive — skips the tabs and gets its own list.
- 2
Tick what that surface needs
Each surface offers only the trades that apply to it. Tick one and it prices itself.
- ·Floor: flooring, tiles, concrete, insulation, floor prep.
- ·Walls: paint, wallpaper, tiles, boards and drywall, stud wall, insulation, cladding.
- ·Ceiling: paint, boards and drywall, insulation.
- ·The figure appears straight away, from the area you drew. Nothing is typed twice.
- 3
Override a single wall
Select one wall instead of the room when it is not like the others.
- ·A tiled splashback wall in a painted kitchen is one wall with its own trades.
- ·A single wall uses its own length and its own net area, not the room perimeter.
- ·An exterior wall adds its own list: facade cladding, external insulation, render.
- 4
Correct the assumptions
Open Options and prices on any ticked trade. Defaults are sensible, not yours.
- ·Price per pack, pack coverage, waste — change them to your merchant’s numbers.
- ·There is a free text field for the product name, so the list says Dulux Timeless rather than "paint".
- ·Edits feed the estimate, the materials list and the PDF together.
- 5
Read the total
The Materials panel totals every surface, every room and every floor.
- ·Per-wall rows split interior from exterior, so a wall can carry both.
- ·The figure in the top bar is the whole plan, across all floors.
One wall, priced
This is step two on a single wall. Put in your own measurements and watch the quantities change — these are the figures you order from, not an area.
Your dimensions
Your materials
Framework
Fasteners
Cladding
Insulation
Trims and finishing
Quantities are worked out exactly. Prices are typical European merchant prices — an estimate to start from, not a quote; your local prices will differ. In the calculator you can type your own over them.
Which trades belong to which surface
| Floor | Flooring, tiles, concrete, insulation, floor prep |
| Walls | Paint, wallpaper, tiles, boards and drywall, stud wall, insulation, cladding |
| Ceiling | Paint, boards and drywall, insulation |
| One exterior wall | Facade cladding, external wall insulation, render, facade tiles |
| Outdoor zone | Decking, balcony, paving, concrete, asphalt, gravel, lawn |
| Outdoor perimeter | Fencing, railings |
The lists are deliberately short. A surface offering every calculator on the site would be a menu, not a decision.
What each trade actually needs
The planner counts the materials. These explain the build-up behind them.
Common questions
Why is wall area split into gross and net?
Gross is perimeter times height. Net subtracts the doors and windows. Net is what you buy materials against, because nobody paints a doorway or boards over a window. On a room with two doors and a large window the difference is easily four or five square metres, which is a whole tin of paint.
Can one wall be different from the rest of the room?
Yes. Select the single wall rather than the room and tick trades on it. That wall then uses its own length and its own net area instead of the room perimeter — which matters, because sizing a splashback off the whole room would order several times too much tile.
What if I am only doing one surface?
Tick only that one. Nothing is assumed: a room with only the floor ticked costs only a floor. The three tabs exist so that a part-renovation is as easy to price as a full one.
Where do the default prices come from?
Typical European merchant prices, as a starting point rather than a quote, and they convert into the currency you have selected. Every one is editable, and a changed price carries through to the estimate, the materials list and the exported document.
Does this work for outdoor areas?
Yes. A zone drawn as a terrace, balcony, drive, garden or pool gets its own trade list — decking, paving, asphalt, gravel, lawn — plus fencing and railings along its perimeter rather than wall trades.
Free to try — no sign-up, nothing to install. The whole job, in seven steps →