Homes Around the World
How homes are built, measured and renovated in different countries — and what it means for your planning.
The Calculators Are Global
The calculators are global; the context is local. Every tool on this site runs in metric or imperial, converts between them and states its assumptions, so the same pool volume calculator serves a courtyard pond in Kyoto and a double garage in Ohio. What changes is everything around the arithmetic: standard sizes, room habits, materials and rules. The full set lives on the tools page; the guides below supply the local half.
Practical Guides
- Tatami Room Sizes Explained How mat counts size Japanese rooms — what six mats measures in square metres, and why mat size varies by region.
- Planning a Compact Japanese Home Circulation, storage and multi-use rooms where every square metre works twice — small-home planning, Japanese style.
- Renovating an Apartment in China What a bare-shell handover typically means, and what the renovation actually covers — partitions, floors and wet rooms.
- UK Bathroom Tile Planning Metric tile sizes, wet-area details and the measurement habits of British bathrooms — planned with the tile calculator.
- Building a Home in South Africa Face-brick walls on a concrete slab — the stages of a typical South African build, from footings to handover.
- Timber Sizes Around the World Nominal versus actual: why a 2×4 is neither 2 nor 4 inches, and what the same stud measures in metric timber yards.
Why Regional Context
Building methods, materials, standard sizes and regulations all vary by country. A “standard” brick, a “normal” room or a “typical” ceiling height is only standard locally, and a job that needs approval in one country is a weekend project in another. The calculators on this site are unit-flexible and country-neutral on purpose — they convert units and let you enter your own local dimensions — but numbers alone can't tell you what a “standard” brick measures in Manchester or how a six-mat room in Kyoto is counted. These guides add the local context that generic tools can't.
Same House, Different Units
| Region | Local habit | What it means for planning |
|---|---|---|
| Japan | Rooms sized in tatami mats, typically ~90 × 180 cm and varying by region; area in tsubo (~3.3 m²) | Convert mat counts to m² before ordering materials |
| North America | Lumber sold by nominal size — a 2×4 finishes around 38 × 89 mm | Calculate with actual, dressed dimensions |
| United Kingdom | Metric brick 215 × 102.5 × 65 mm with 10 mm joints | About 60 bricks per m² of wall |
| US vs UK | Two different gallons: 3.785 L vs 4.546 L | Check which gallon a pump or pool spec means |
| China | Headline floor area can include a share of communal spaces | Plan on usable area, not the headline figure |
Typical, not universal — standards vary within countries as well as between them. The guides above go deeper on each.