Imagine you've just taken a big step and bought the house of your dreams! It's very big and contains all the bells and whistles...but it doesn't scream "YOU!" just yet. Decorating is an important step in the process of making a house into a home. You'll need to pick out colors, patterns, accessories, and more...and don't forget the math!
Oh yes, mathematics is essential to home decoration! Don't believe me? Suppose you're trying to pick out a new sofa to put in your living room. You want one that's nice and big so that all of your friends and family can sit on it and visit with each other. But how big is too big? How will you know how much space this sofa will take up? What if it doesn't fit? Grab your tape measure and start calculating some areas! Find the area of the space you'd like to put the sofa in, and decide how much space you'd like for it to take up. Then take those dimensions with you when you shop so that you know what you're looking for!
What if you'd like to put in some fancy plush carpet? Putting new carpeting or flooring in a house can get expensive. The last thing you want to do is order too much or go over your budget. Back to finding areas! You'll need to take every nook and cranny of the room into account. The best way to do this is to split the room into many rectangles or other simple polygons. If you can find the areas of the smaller pieces, then you can add them together to get the area of the whole room. Some simple multiplication can help you compare prices and decide which carpet suits your budget best.
There are many other ways that math is useful in home decorating. For examples of the ideas I've shared and for additional ideas, see this page.
I definitely could use some help with decorating, and with the math involved! Hanging pictures halfway between windows or organizing them into groups with a consistent amount of space between them is a challenge! When my son wanted to rearrange his room, I had him make a grid on graph paper and cut out pieces of paper to represent his furniture to scale. He was able to find the most effective placement without moving heavy pieces multiple times. Math to the rescue again!
ReplyDeleteHello Erica,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the information and website. I try to use an example of everyday use for math every lesson. I will use this website when working with some of the geometry. Melissa, great idea to have your son use the graph paper. It sure helps and the kids will have an idea of the available space without the trial and error component.