Here's what we suggest you do:

  1. Make a list of your project parts
  2. Calculate the board footage of each part
  3. Add up the footage for each part (but separate into groups so you know what needs to come from 4/4, 8/4. etc)
  4. Multiply each sum by a waste factor of at least 1.5


Me & Math Don't Get Along - Give Me Another Way

Download our Project Planner worksheet. Just fill it in with your project parts and it'll do the hard part.

Check out our video tutorial on how to use it, too.


If you're not that confident in your board footage math skills, then we do offer a board footage calculator on our website under Lumber Help.


If you're not confident in using our project planner then we do offer a board footage calculator on our website as well.