Cutting it fine

When viewing my new home before moving in, I measured the size of the living room to see if my Ngauge model railway layout, which is 12' long, would fit. Taking a tape measure I found the room to be just under 13' long

Now I've moved in, it's time to put the layout up. It's at this point I made an alarming discovery; none of the corners of the room are square! The side I had measured proved to be the long side of the room.

I put up the first two boards, and realised to my horror that there was less than four feet left to the far corner. Taking out the tape measure showed I had just 45 inches in which to fit a four-foot board. Basic arithmetic told me that this will not fit!

Fortunately by repositioning the one of the legs to avoid the corner of the protruding window sill, I could gain another two inches. Still not quite enough. I wondered if it would be possible to hack a couple of inches off the board to make things fit.

Then I remembered. The boards are actually 1200mm in length, not four feet. This is actually 47 inches. The layout just fits, with not a quarter of an inch to spare.