Room and wall
Paper and pattern
| Rolls | Amount |
|---|
How this calculator works
The perimeter (less any doors and windows) divided by the roll width gives the number of drops needed to go round the room, rounded up since a part-width drop still needs a full width of paper. Each roll's usable length is divided into drops of your wall height, rounded down to a whole number, since a part-drop at the end of a roll is normally offcut waste rather than a joinable partial length. Total rolls is the drops needed divided by the drops per roll, rounded up.
Why a pattern repeat costs you paper
This is the fiddly part people get wrong. With a plain paper or a random match, every drop is simply your wall height long. With a repeating pattern, each new drop has to line up with the one next to it, so its cut length has to round up to the next whole multiple of the repeat distance, and the offcut from that rounding is wasted. A 64cm repeat on a 2.4m wall, for example, doesn't cut cleanly: this calculator rounds the effective drop length up to the nearest full repeat automatically, so a bigger repeat on a wall height that doesn't divide neatly into it will quietly need more rolls than the plain-paper maths would suggest, exactly why this calculator exists.
Standard UK roll sizes
10.05m x 0.53m is the standard UK roll size and the default here, but wide-width papers (around 68 to 140cm) are increasingly common and use noticeably fewer rolls for the same wall, since fewer, wider drops are needed to go round the room. Always check the roll dimensions on the product you're actually buying.
What this calculator does not check
This tool covers roll count only. It doesn't check wall preparation (lining paper is usually needed on bare plaster or uneven walls, and is bought and calculated separately using the same method), pasting method (paste-the-wall versus paste-the-paper varies by product), or batch/shade matching, always check the batch number matches across all rolls for one room, since dye lots can vary slightly between print runs.
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