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28 August 2014
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DIY Project
Units and Conversions

I'm sure you noticed that all of the units are given in feet and inches. In the decorating business units get mixed up all the time. This is an old Victorian house, so everything was made to old Victorian standards.

If you look in a DIY catalogue, most of the sizes will be given in metres (m) or millimetres (mm). So, we need to be able to convert everything to just the one set of units. The most standard is metres, so we'll use them.

We'll practice on bedroom 2!
This is 8'2" x 10'4". (Check the plan)
That means it is 8 feet and 2 inches wide by 10 feet and 4 inches long. Tape Measure

1 foot is a standard length ruler and 12 inches make 1 foot.
1 inch is roughly 25.4 mm
1000mm = 1m

This is what we do:
There are 8 x 12 = 96 inches in 8 feet. So 8'2" is 98 inches.
98 x 25.4 = 2489.2mm
2489.2 ÷ 1000 = 2.4892m
This is roughly 2.5m

There are 10 x 12 = 120 inches in 10 feet. So 10'4" is 124 inches.
124 x 25.4 = 3149.6mm
3149.6 ÷ 1000 = 3.1496m
This is roughly 3.1m

Work out the width and length of bedroom 1. Enter your answers to 1 decimal place like the examples.

Bedroom Plan

The length ism
The width is m


Make a copy of the room plan with the dimensions in meters.

Find out more about imperial and metric units at:


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