Cynthia Besch wants to buy a rug for a room that is 21 ft. wide and 26 ft. long. She wants to leave a uniform strip of floor around the rug. She can afford to buy 374 square feet of carpeting. What dimensions should the rug have?

Solution:

The width of rug is x

2(21x+26x)+4x^2 = 374

x=3.47

So the rug should have width less than 3.47 ft