Find out how many quarters of a foot (3 inches) there are in the sides:
There are 12 such quarters in 3, plus 3 for ¾=15 quarters in 3¾ feet. So we would need 15 3-inch unit squares to make up this length. Think of square tiles, each measuring 3in by 3in.
There are 8 quarters, plus 1 for ¼=9 quarters in 2¼ feet. So we would need 9 3-inch unit squares to make up the width.
Assemble the unit squares to form the rectangle 15 by 9 unit squares.
You would need 9 times 15=135 unit squares (3-in square tiles) to fill the whole area.
A square made up of 4 by 4 unit squares (16 3-inch unit squares) are needed to make one square foot (a large tile). Therefore to find out the area in square feet we would need to see how many times 16 goes into 135.
8 sixteens make 128 square feet with 7 3 by 3 unit squares left over, so that makes the number 87/16 square feet. You would need 8 large tiles and 7 small tiles to construct the area of the rectangle.