8 Simple Ways to Soundproof Your Home

Add Rugs or Carpets

Footsteps echo extra loud on uncovered floors, so consider carpeting your floors to stop foot traffic from becoming a nuisance, 6sqft.com suggests. If you're not ready to fully commit to carpet though, a few well-placed rugs will also do the trick.

Replace Your Doors

In terms of sound blocking, the doors in your home probably aren't cutting it. That's because most interior doors are hollow, according to a spokesperson for the National Wood Window & Door Association. "Any one of the particleboard-core, composite-core, or solid-wood doors would work much better at providing a sound barrier than a hollow-core door.”

Upgrade Your Windows

To ensure noise isn't slipping through the cracks in your windows, Zillow suggests weatherstripping each window in your home by filling in any cracks or gaps with an acoustical caulk sealant. Replacing your existing windows with triple pane glass will also do wonders to block out sounds.

Try Sound Absorbing Paint

Yes, sound-absorbing paint does exist, and the specially formulated wall coating can reduce noise by up to 30 percent, according to SFGate. Companies like Serenity Coating specifically create these paints to reflect and absorb excess sounds.

Replace Squeaky Flooring

Squeaky floors can be incredibly annoying. You can, of course, completely replace loose boards from the problematic floor, just make sure you completely remove the old flooring first. If that's out of the question, tightening your existing floor should help as well, according to Zillow.

Use Bookcases and Books

Bibliophiles, you're in luck. Bookcases and the books you fill them with actually help to create a barrier against unwanted noise, according to 6sqft.com. Just make sure there aren't a ton of empty spaces on the shelves.

Don't Forget Curtains

You already know curtains are pros at keeping the sun out of your rooms, but they're also great at keeping noise from entering your home, especially if they're made from tightly-woven fabric such as embroidered brocade, velvet, or wool. To really maximize the sound reduction, make sure they cover the wall above and below your window too.

Insulate, Insulate, Insulate

This one seems like a no-brainer, but it's often overlooked: Add insulation to your ceilings and walls. According to Zillow, insulation is one of the most effective ways to keep unwanted noise out. After all, no one wants thin walls, right?

High School Shop Class Builds A House Every Year Since 1974

Every fall since 1974 at Forest Grove High School in Forest Grove, Oregon, the students in the Viking House project have begun the school year with nothing more than a plot of land. By June they have a completed house. The program was started by Birt Hansen and is now run by a local contractor turned teacher, Chris Higginbotham. In four decades, it's remained completely self-sustaining: The profits from one house pay for the materials for the next. The labor, of course, is free. And grateful. One student shares his experience. 

I don't come from a particularly handy family—my parents have no trade skills whatsoever—but I have always been curious about building things. When my two older brothers went through the Viking House program, I saw how much they enjoyed it and how much they learned, and I decided I wanted to do it, too. After enrolling in 2014, I fell in love with working with my hands. So much that I am one of only two returning students in this year's program.

Viking House is probably the most real and applicable class you can take in high school. You have to complete some prerequisites, including woodworking and basic construction classes, before you can join, but after that you get to start working on a house. I've learned a lot and gotten much more familiar with tools in general. Before I started the class my nail-driving skills were not good; now they're second only to the instructors'. Some tools, like the circular saw, were a little scary to be around at first. Those things are dangerous. Once I learned how to control one and to respect its power it got a lot more comfortable. Viking House has also taught me how to interact with other people better. As a returning student, I've had the opportunity to teach my classmates a few skills. Sometimes the way I'm explaining something just won't get through, and instead of getting frustrated I try a different approach. I've become a better teacher. I understand other people better and work better with them. I even got a job out of it. Last summer I worked on a real construction crew run by two Viking House alumni.

  

The woodshop is my favorite place to be in school. Whenever I have free time, that's where I am. We precut a lot of things, so there's always something to work on. We precut outlookers (the wooden joists that form the eaves of the house), plywood, and window frames. It saves us a ton of time out on the job. All of these things are premade and ready to go.

Every week during the school year we spend between six and ten hours per week on the site, depending on our class schedules. We also have "work parties" on holidays and some weekends when we work on the house. I don't consider it work, though. It's fun. Last year I put in 58 extra hours outside of school. 

At the beginning of each class we all check in at the woodshop, pick up our class-issued tool bags—filled with a framing hammer, speed square, 25-foot tape, chalk line, utility knife, carpenter's pencil, hard hat, safety glasses, and gloves—and take a bus to the job site. We hire a team to dig out the foundation and get professional help for the plumbing, electrical work, and drywall, but everything else we do ourselves. We'll frame and raise walls, add windows, and even put up the roof supports, or trusses.

The day we put trusses on the house is the best day of the year. We take a field trip out to the house in the morning, where our teacher, Mr. Higginbotham, provides coffee and breakfast. The trusses arrive premade on a truck. Two professionals and a few expert volunteers help us put them up. By the end of the day, you feel like a professional yourself. You've put in a full day of work on a construction site—and it's work you can see. With the trusses up, the site really looks like a house.

In 40 years, Viking House has never missed a deadline. The house always goes on the market, and it always sells. We use that money to pay for the next house. But that's not what's really important. Once you've helped build a house you develop a kind of ownership of it. It is a little sense of pride, especially when people go through the house and they don't know it's built by high schoolers. They're so amazed that you usually have to tell them a few times.