All construction projects require a particular set of materials to stand.

This includes renovation work too. So, if you’re planning to redo something any time soon, this guide should prove to be helpful.

Of course, you should also consider that material costs aren’t the only expense when it comes to home renovation. You also need to factor in labor costs, permits, and ‘x’ amount of additional unforeseen costs.

That’s simply how the world works. But for the material costs in home renovation, this blog post should be helpful if this is your first house revamp attempt.

Adding Up Home Renovation Materials Cost

There’s a lot that goes into narrowing down potential expenditures for the materials you’d use to improve your home’s appearance or quality. But it all boils down to two major steps that encapsulate the entire process of getting an estimated cost of said materials.

1. Calculate The Quantities Of Required Material
2. Use Material Quantities To Derive Prices

Let’s go through each of these processes in a bit more detail

1. Calculate The Quantities Of Required Material

You can’t decide how much you’ll spend without understanding how much you’ll use. A sneaky contractor may try to slip in higher prices by showing you an exaggerated amount of used materials on paper. If you’re not in the know of how much may have been needed, you may agree to pay whatever they ask. But if you’ve calculated how much of what material is actually required for each part of the project, you can be more sure of whether or not the contractor’s giving you the right details.

There are a few ways to about this, which can be as follows:

Go By The Area

If you’re going for a minor change in your house’s interior, paints and wallpaper might be your go-to materials. These are generally quite affordable unless you’re trying to achieve a very particular aesthetic.

Either way, you can calculate how much you’ll need by measuring the area of the walls you intend to repaint. For instance, the area of a 10ft. x 40ft. room would be:

40ft × 10ft, or 400 ft²

So, using a paint that covers 350 ft²/gallon, you’ll need…

400 ÷ 350, or 1.14 gallons of paint to cover all the walls.

Of course, if you’re going for a more solid revamp, you may consider updating your installed floors. Calculating by area is an efficient way to go for this application as well. You’ll need exactly as much flooring material as required to cover the length of each floor that you want renewed.

Go By The Volume

There are some materials where areas don’t apply and you have to go by volume. This is because you’ll be using more material. Instead of applying a thin flat layer, you’ll need to add a significant amount that covers more space. This warrants the involvement of the third dimension of depth.

So, for instance, the volume of a 10 x 12 x 0.33 patio concrete slab would be:

10ft × 12ft × 0.33ft, which comes up to 40 cubic feet.

That’s how much concrete you need. But of course, concrete is measured by cubic yards. So, convert it to cubic yards.

40 cubic feet ÷ 27 ≈ 1.48 cubic yards.

So, you’ll need approximately 1.48 cubic yards of concrete for the slab.

The formula also works for materials like mortar and gravel where you need to know the volume of a specific material you’ll need.

Go By The Count

Sometimes, you will need to go by the quantity of the material instead.

For instance, if you’re going for contemporary fixtures to replace your old ones, you’ll need to know the exact number of faucets, light bulbs, or fans you’ll need to change.

Similarly, if you’re updating your bathroom tiles, you’ll need to know how many would fit into each one you’re upgrading. In the same way, you’ll need a nearly exact number to re-do your roofing as well. For instance, if your roof is 4,000 ft², you’ll need 40 squares.

2. Use Material Quantities To Derive Prices

Using the methods above, you should have most of your material costs down. If you need help with specifics, reach out to us and we’ll help you figure it out.

But otherwise, you should be ready to turn your quantities into prices. For this part, you should understand, however, that the prices of any kind of resource you use can vary due to a plethora of reasons.

For instance, it could be due to differences in quality, expired discounts, economic issues, or a company suddenly deciding to raise their prices.

So, you’ll have to look up the exact prices for materials in your locality offered by the brands you trust.

You can then make a table of material costs of home renovation with the required materials in the first column, their prices in the next, followed by the quantity you need, and the final price according to your project’s needs.

So, you’ll may up with something like this:

Material Costs Of Home Renovation Project
Material	Price (per unit)	Quantity Needed	Total Price
Paint	$30 per gallon	2 gallons	$60
Wallpaper	$50 per roll	3 rolls	$150
Flooring	$3 per square foot	100 sq. ft.	$300
Baseboard Trim	$2 per linear foot	50 linear ft.	$100
Light Fixture	$50 each	2 fixtures	$100
Electrical Outlets	$5 each	4 outlets	$20
Switches	$3 each	3 switches	$9
Total			$881

Of course, this is simply an example of what the table might look like. You may use a different set of materials and in a different quantity. But you get the idea, this is something of what it may look like.

Once you’ve calculated your final material expenses, you can better judge quotations offered by different contractors. Some may offer you a deal with a similar cost estimation, others may offer something higher or lower.

Ultimately, however, you shouldn’t solely look at how well a contractor’s prices match your own. You should also consider their reputation among other clients, their work quality, and their contract type to narrow down the service provider that offers you the best guaranteed value.