Turn a home project question into an editable plan.
HouseWorkbench takes the measurements, materials, and prices you already have and turns them into a transparent quantity plan, a comparison between options, and the next fact worth checking before you spend money. Everything runs in your browser: nothing you enter is ever sent anywhere.
How a plan gets built
Every project on this site follows the same shape. You describe the project in plain measurements: dimensions, the products you are considering, and the prices you have found. The site calculates the quantities you would actually need to buy, not just a raw square-footage or linear number, accounting for waste, package sizes, and leftover coverage. When two real options are on the table, it compares them on the same terms so the tradeoff is visible instead of assumed.
The result is never presented as the final word. Alongside the numbers, the site names the facts that still depend on your specific project: a manufacturer's installation instructions, a local requirement, a site condition a tape measure cannot capture, or a professional's judgment where the work goes beyond material planning. A plan is a starting point for buying with confidence, not a substitute for checking those facts.
Interior and exterior, one connected workbench
Interior finish projects, paint, flooring, tile, trim, and storage, and exterior surface and boundary projects, decks, patios, fencing, and ground cover, usually get planned with a different disconnected calculator for each step. This site treats them as one workbench: a project you start can carry its measurements and choices forward into the next decision instead of starting over with a blank tool every time.
Interior finish planning
Paint, flooring, tile, trim, walls, storage, and window treatments, planned room by room.
ExteriorExterior surface and boundary planning
Deck surfaces, patios, ground cover, fencing, and garden structures, within a nonstructural planning scope.
Project planningBudgets, comparisons, and sequencing
Turn quantities into a shopping list, a contingency budget, and a phased plan across an entire project.
Decision first, always. You get the number you came for before any explanation. Everything after that, the interpretation, the tradeoff, the hidden detail, and the next decision, exists to make that number more useful, not to pad the page.
What this site is not
Planning scope, not professional judgment
HouseWorkbench plans material quantities, preliminary budgets from prices you enter, and option comparisons for interior finishes and nonstructural exterior work. It does not calculate structural members, footings, electrical circuits, plumbing, gas lines, or other life-safety systems, and it is not a permit service, a code-compliance authority, or a contractor lead generator. It never claims a plan is safe, permitted, or code-compliant; only that it is transparent about the math and the inputs behind it.
See how it works for the full measurement-to-plan workflow, or about this project for the reasoning behind that boundary.