Math for Grownups (12 page)

You certainly could. But
A
is useful, because it shows that all three results represent area.

(Did you figure it out on your own? Even if you didn’t, give yourself an
A
for effort.)

Which is easier: dragging heavy furniture around a room or drawing a picture? If you’re trying to find out whether that king-size bed you’ve got your eye on will fit in your bedroom and still let you open your closet door, a scale drawing can help you figure it out.

If you’re planning a major overhaul—including paint, flooring, and new furniture—a scale drawing can help you estimate materials and prices before you even set foot in a home improvement store.

In a scale drawing, the measurements on paper are in proportion to the actual measurements. For example, your scale may be ¼" to 1'. This means that every ¼" in the drawing is equal to 1' in the room itself. (Did you know that each of the squares on graph paper is about ¼" by ¼"? That’s why the ¼"-to-1' scale is really common.)

Luckily, there are some easy steps for making a ¼"-to-1' scale drawing of a room.

1. Measure your room.

2. Draw the outline of the room on your graph paper, remembering that each box represents 1'. If the length of a wall is 14½', draw a line that is 14½ boxes long.

3. Be careful to consider all irregularities of the room, such as bay windows, bump-outs, and weird angles.

4. Mark off doors and windows. Do this by measuring from the molding to an adjoining wall.

5. Label all measurements carefully.

Want to get really fancy? You can also make scale drawings of the furniture. Cut these pieces out of another piece of graph paper, and you can try them in different positions in the room—without back strain.

Remember, a room is three-dimensional, with 3-D components, like tables, cabinets, and the kitchen sink. And that’s what makes renovating a kitchen such a difficult task. Not only do you have to think of the surfaces—floors, walls, and ceilings—but you have to think of the cabinets, countertops, and appliances. Because these are 3-D objects, you have one extra opportunity to make a mistake.

The fridge can be the most challenging appliance to measure for, because it often has cabinets on one or both sides and above it. One little error can mean not being able to open the refrigerator door or—worse—not being able to fit the darned thing in the space allotted.

This problem can arise in either of two different forms: Either you have the fridge and are building the cabinets, or you’re buying a fridge for existing cabinets. Let’s look at the first scenario.

Eli is renovating his kitchen, and one thing is for certain. He wants the Zero-Below side-by-side refrigerator with a pull-out freezer drawer at the bottom. In other words, he needs to make sure that the cabinets he is having installed will leave room for this particular fridge. He has the manufacturer’s guidelines for the appliance: The width is 48", the height is 84", and the depth (without the door and handle) is 25". These guidelines also suggest that he leave no more than ¼" between the fridge and the cabinets or wall. What should the dimensions of this space be?

First, Eli considers the depth. He needs the fridge to be ¼" away from the wall, so he adds that to the depth of the appliance: 25" + ¼" = 25¼". Now for the height: The fridge should be ¼" from the top cabinet, but it’s resting on the floor, so he only needs to add ¼" to the height: 84" + ¼" = 84¼".

The width is a little different. Because this is a built-in refrigerator, Eli needs to consider the cabinets on either side of the fridge. That means he’ll add ¼" to each side: ¼" + 48" + ¼" = 48½".

Thus the space he needs for his beloved Zero-Below is 48½" × 84¼" × 25¼".

But Josh has a slightly different problem. After 15 years, his fridge bit the dust. He needs to replace it, but he doesn’t want to change his cabinets. The space for the refrigerator is 45" × 84" × 24". What is the largest icebox he can buy?

Josh needs to do the opposite of what Eli did; he needs to subtract from these dimensions. The guidelines are the same: The distance between the refrigerator and the walls or cabinets should be no more than ¼".

Like Eli, Josh starts with the depth, but unlike Eli, he
subtracts
¼" from the depth of the cabinets: 45" - ¼". Doing a little mental math, he figures out that the result is 44¾". Then he moves to the height, subtracting ¼" from 84": 84" - ¼" = 83¾".

Again, though, the width is a little trickier. His space is 24" wide, but he has to subtract ¼" from
each side
. That means he has to subtract a total of ½": 24" - ½" = 23½".

Now he just needs to ask Eli to go shopping with him and help him move the new refrigerator into place.

Hanging pictures can be a tricky business. If you’re not careful, your foyer can look like a hall of mirrors—with crooked photos of your wedding party alongside drawings that your kid made in kindergarten. Not to mention the holes in the drywall from when you realized that you hung your college diploma so high up the wall that only a giant could read it.

Not exactly the look you were going for?

You may not want to face it, but a tape measure, pencil, and yes, even a level, are your best buddies in home decorating. And hanging anything on your walls is no exception. Let’s look at this in a bit more detail.

Mimsy Mimsiton is thrilled to have finally received the oil portrait of her dear Mr. Cuddles, a teacup poodle who is set to inherit her large fortune. The painting will look
fabulous
above the marble fireplace in the west-wing lounge of her mansion.

But drat! The museum curator Mimsy has on retainer is in Paris, looking for additions to Mimsy’s collection of French landscapes. (She’s redoing the upstairs powder room and wants just the right Monet to round out the décor.)

But the painting must be hung before Mr. Cuddles’s birthday party. His little poodle friends would be so disappointed not to see it! There’s no way around it; Mimsy’s poor, overworked House Manager must hang the painting herself.

Luckily, House Manager is no stranger to the DIY trend, and Butler will be there to help. The two meet in the lounge, where the painting has already been delivered—along with a stepladder, a tape measure, and a pencil. Once House Manager marks the spot, Handy Man will come along to safely secure the painting to the wall.

House Manager and Butler get to work. First they measure the painting: With the gilded frame, it’s 54" tall and 60" wide.

Next, they turn their attention to the space above the mantle. House Manager climbs atop the ladder, while Butler holds it steady. From the ceiling to the top of the mantle is 84". The width of the mantle is 75".

Climbing down from the ladder, House Manager notes that the painting will certainly fit in the space allotted. She knows from experience that it is to be centered over the mantle. However, Mimsy will have a fit if the painting is centered vertically—between the ceiling and the mantle. No, the bottom of the painting must be
exactly
12" above the mantle.

So how high should Handy Man install the picture hanger?

To find out, House Manager must add 12" to 54" (the height of the painting). The top of the painting should be 66" above the mantle.

House Manager grabs her tape measure again and removes the freshly sharpened pencil from behind her ear. Then she climbs the ladder. Starting at one end of the mantle, she measures 37½"—which is half the width of the mantle. She makes a barely visible pencil mark at that point.

Then from there, she measures up the wall to 64". Again, she carefully makes a faint pencil mark.

If House Manager stopped here—leaving that small mark for Handy Man to hang the portrait—she’d probably be out of a job. That’s because she’s merely marked the top of the frame, not where the hanger should be secured.

She descends the ladder and goes back to the portrait. Turning it around, she notices the picture wire that has been stretched from one side to the other. She hooks her finger under the center of the wire and pulls up gently—creating an angle, as if the picture wire were hanging on a nail. Now an angle is a two-dimensional figure formed by two lines (called rays) that share a common point. Here’s an easier way to remember this: An angle looks like a V.

If she can measure the distance from the top of the frame to the vertex—the point where two sides of an angle meet—she’ll be in business.

There’s just one more thing to consider: Is the vertex of the angle too far to the left or too far to the right? For the painting to hang straight and be centered on the mantle, the vertex must be located at exactly half the width of the portrait.

House Manager uses her tape measure to find the length of each leg of the angle. In other words, she measures the distance from one end of the picture wire to the vertex of the angle and then the distance from the vertex of the angle to the other end of the wire. If the vertex is centered properly, the legs of the angle will have the same length.

Moving her finger ever so slightly, House Manager centers the vertex of the wire angle—and measures from that point to the top of the picture frame: 9".

She now can make the final mark for Handy Man. She climbs the ladder for the third time and measures 9" from the mark she made earlier. Again, being very careful, she makes a tiny mark on the wall.

House Manager’s work is done. If anything goes wrong now, it’s Handy Man’s fault.

She folds up the ladder and gathers her supplies. Then she’s off to order beef cupcakes for Mr. Cuddles’s party.

You need a piece of art to cover the hole in the wall where your brother accidentally shot off his Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle. And at a spring yard sale, you find just what you’ve been looking for—a black velvet Elvis, ebony-painted wood frame and all.

When you get home, you notice the problem right away. The Elvis’s back has no picture wire or hook. Luckily, your mom gave you a home-improvement kit when you moved into your trailer, and even more remarkably, you know where it is.

The kit includes a length of wire, two eye screws, and a picture hanger to nail into the wall. But where the heck should you put the screws? And how long should the wire be?

The kit instructions give a little bit of direction:

1. Cut the wire so that it’s 1½ times the width of the picture.

2. Install the screws 2∕3 of the way from the bottom of the frame.

First, deal with the wire. At that same yard sale, you bought an old yardstick, which you use to measure the width of the frame: 30". How do you find 1½ times 30"? As always, you have some choices. You can multiply 30 by 1.5. Or, if you’re up for some mental math, try this:

½ of 30 is 15

30
+
15
=
45

so 1½ times 30 is 45

You measure 45" of the wire and cut it.

Now you have to deal with the eye screws. You can measure 2∕3 from the bottom of the frame or 1∕3 from the top of the frame. Either way, you need to do some math.

The frame is 42" tall, and 1∕3 of 42 is the same thing as 42 / 3, or 14". Thus you can measure 14" from the top of the frame to find where you should put the eye screws.

You call your brother over to install the eye screws. (He caused the problem to begin with, and believe it or not, he’s better with hand tools.) Within the hour, Elvis is on the wall.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Unless your nearest neighbor is in the next county, you probably want to ensure yourself some privacy by way of curtains, shades, or drapes. (And in an old house, drapes are practically a necessity—they block drafts from 100-year-old windowpanes!)

Hanging curtains is another DIY project that can make you want to pitch your cordless drill through the nearest sliding glass door. But if you take this project in small steps, you can feel like the queen or king of home improvement. You might even try building a deck!

But you’re getting ahead of yourself.

As with most house projects, you’ll need to take some measurements. Drawing a picture is also really helpful. And rather than guessing where you should hang the curtain rods, why not turn to some real-live decorators—or at least to their advice from books, websites, or television shows? Let’s look in on someone who’s doing this.

Sarah is so tired. Her precious little baby, Sine, is not so precious when he wakes up at dawn. And in the Alaska summer, dawn comes way, way too early. If she could get just an hour more sleep each morning, she’d feel like a new person.

Time for some blackout curtains for the baby’s room.

She consults a decorator friend for advice. He gives her five important pieces of information:

1. Sarah will need two panels for each of the two windows in Sine’s room. That’s four panels in all.

2. For fullness, the width of the curtains should be twice the width of the window, so each panel should be the same width as the window.

3. To block out the light, the curtains should hang from just above the top molding to just above the floor.

4. The curtain rod brackets should be hung 5" on either side of the molding.

5. No moose prints!

While Sine is out fishing with his dad, Sarah takes some measurements. Both windows in Sine’s room are the same size. She draws a quick sketch and fills in the measurements.

• Width: 30"

• From the top of the window molding to just above the floor: 64"