About Masonry & Exterior Calculations
Masonry estimating is a counting game, and the count depends entirely on unit size. A standard brick covers different wall area than a queen or modular brick, and pavers come in a dozen footprints. Get the unit dimensions right and the rest is division: area divided by the coverage of one unit, plus waste.
Waste here runs higher than people expect. Cuts at edges, corners, and around obstacles mean scrapped pieces, so plan 5% on a clean rectangle and up to 10% on a patio with curves or a wall with lots of corners. Pavers especially, since every curved border eats units.
Don't forget what goes underneath. A paver patio needs 4 to 6 inches of compacted base and an inch of bedding sand, and those get ordered by volume in cubic yards or tons. Skip the base depth and the patio heaves the first freeze. Stone and gravel sell by the ton, which means converting volume to weight through density, so a cubic yard of one material isn't a ton of another.
Pros run these online because the coverage tables are baked in. Instead of hunting down how many of a specific paver fit in a square foot, you enter your area and get the count. Order once, account for waste, and keep a few units back for repairs since color lots change between batches.