Wallpaper Calculator

Always up. Wallpaper is cut to length, so a shortfall of half a drop means an entire extra roll — often from a different batch. Rounding up costs one roll; rounding down can cost the whole wall.

Each print run is dyed separately and colour drifts subtly between runs. Order all your rolls together and check the batch number printed on every label matches before you start hanging.

Ceilings, yes — enter the ceiling as a wall using its length and width. Stairwells need care: use the tallest drop as your height, since every drop must be cut to the longest point.

Measure that wall alone rather than the room. Most single feature walls take two to four rolls — enter the width and height above and the calculator gives the exact figure for your chosen paper.

On a straight match, every drop is cut up to one full repeat longer than the wall. A 64cm repeat on a 2.4m wall adds roughly 6cm per drop, which is enough to lose a fourth usable drop from a 10m roll.

Enter each sloped section as its own wall, using the tallest point as the height. You will over-order slightly, which is correct — the offcuts from a slope are rarely usable elsewhere.

Allow roughly 20 to 30 minutes per drop for a first-timer on a plain wall, longer for a large repeat or an offset match. A standard room is comfortably a weekend, or half a day for a decorator.

Only as a last resort. The old paper can lift and bubble as the new adhesive soaks through, and any seam or pattern beneath will telegraph. Strip it, fill, and let the wall dry properly first.

Not usually. Paper still has to be hung above and below an opening, and the offcuts rarely align with the pattern elsewhere. Only deduct for very large openings, and even then keep the spare roll.

A 64cm repeat on a 2.4m wall means each drop is cut to 2.56m rather than 2.5m — small per drop, but enough to reduce a 10m roll from four usable drops to three. Larger repeats and lower ceilings compound the effect.

A 4m wide, 2.4m high wall in a free-match paper takes about three rolls of standard 53cm × 10m wallpaper. Add a pattern repeat and it often rises to four, because each drop has to be cut longer to keep the design aligned.

The pattern repeat is the vertical distance before the design starts again, printed on the roll label and listed in the product specification — usually between 0 and 64cm. It is the single biggest factor in how much paper you waste.

Yes — one spare, always. It covers trimming errors, a mis-cut drop and future repairs. Dye lots shift between print runs, so a roll bought later will rarely match the paper already on your wall.

Rolls. A standard UK roll is 53cm wide by 10m long, about 5.3m² before waste, but you cannot buy part of one — which is why the answer is always rounded up to a whole roll.

Reckon on the roll count from this calculator times the price per roll, plus adhesive at around £10 and lining paper if the walls are poor. A decorator will typically charge per roll hung, so the number above is also the number you will be quoted against.