a response to thisWhen I think about home projects, it's easy to see how often formulas come into play. For example, I really need to replace the flooring in my house. The total square footage is 1,248, but since you always need extra, I'd add about 10% for waste. That brings it up to around 1,373 square feet. If each box of flooring covers 20 square feet, I'd divide 1,373 by 20 and figure out I'd need 69 boxes. Without doing the math, I'd probably end up short. Another project I want to tackle is building a dog kennel. I'm planning on making it 10 feet by 12 feet, so I'd figure out the perimeter to know how much fencing I need: 2 (10 + 12) = 44 feet. For the concrete pad, I'd use the volume formula, which comes out to about 40 cubic feet, or almost 1.5 yards. Other examples I've run into are painting a room, where I had to figure out the wall area minus doors and windows, and adding mulch to flower beds by calculating the volume. Doing the math upfront saves time, money, and a lot of frustration