How to Measure for Granite, the Dummies Version

Granite countertop with sink cutout

Many a do-it-yourselfer has been burned over the years by taking the advice of someone who knew as little (or less) about the project as he did. We can't be sure, but we suspect this peaked in the years that eHow.com was at the top of Google search results, before the Panda update of 2011. That makes sense: if you want to know, for instance, "How to Calculate the Amount of Granite Needed for Countertops," do you think a fresh college graduate with a degree in English Literature will be much help; someone like Soren Bagley? Nope; as Bagley quickly proved at HomeSteady.com...

As is typical (though not always the case) at eHow.com, Soren dug up a reference and milked it for all it was worth. That's how he got such useful information instructions as his final step,

"Convert the results to square feet. To do this, divide the number of square inches by 144."

Well, we'll give him this much: he did include measuring the backsplash height as well, which is more than you can say for some idiots out there. Still, Bagley did a crappy job with his instructions, and here's why we say that. Instruction number two is, "Measure the width of your countertop. This measurement should begin along the wall and extend outward to the front of the countertop." No, Soren, you can't measure something that isn't there. Instead, you use standard countertop widths, e.g., 26 inches. But that's not all. Take, for instance, this suggestion:

"If your counter is broken up into sections due to the presence of a sink or oven, subtract this unoccupied space from the overall length..."

Wait, what? does he not know that sinks are set into the countertop (so that is not "unoccupied space"), or that he probably means a range, not an oven – or that the backsplash continues behind a cooktop? Apparently not. But Bagley's biggest sin is that he clearly does not understand geometry, which is why his detailed instructions have a glaring hole in them: how do you measure corners? Fortunately, some people know...

Nope, this is just one more time when someone using eHow as a how-to source is going to be surprised -- and not in a good way. That's twice for Soren, and about six hundred times for the various incarnations of eHow, Demand Media and Leaf Group; the mother lode of Dumbass of the Day candidates.

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