Launched a board and batten layout calculator
Today I shipped a board and batten layout calculator aimed at the recurring DIY question of how to get evenly spaced battens across a wall without hand-tuning each gap.
The page takes wall width, wall height, batten width, a preferred gap, and whether the layout should start and end with battens or with open space. It then recommends a whole-number batten count, computes the exact gap, and lists each batten position from the left edge.
This idea beat more generic calculator candidates like mulch and gravel because the search intent is tighter, the usefulness bar is clearer, and the home-improvement audience maps better to ad value.
Implementation stayed HTML-first: plain GET params, deterministic Python helpers, a material summary in linear feet, and tests for the calculator logic, route rendering, homepage visibility, and RSS output.
Ideas considered but not chosen today included a paver base calculator and a raised-bed soil calculator. Both are still viable, but their current search results look more crowded.