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Have
Soft Surfaces in Your Bedroom to Absorb Sound
To
help you sleep peacefully, the inside of your bedroom should
be an enemy of sound.
This means that you should eliminate hard surfaces as much as
possible. Hard surfaces reflect sound which increases the chance
the noise will make it to your ears and keep you on edge.
Strive for soft surfaces instead. If sound enters your bedroom
from outside or is created inside (from, say, a snorer), soft
surfaces can absorb much of the noise and lessen the amount
that reaches your ears.
This means that hardwood floors are not a good idea, at least
for your bedroom. Instead you should have carpeting with a
thick underlay to absorb as much sound as possible. Thick
drapes / curtains are effective at not only blocking sound
from entering through the windows, but they also absorb sound
made within the bedroom.
On the walls, avoid hard surfaces like large mirrors. Consider
using wallpaper since it will help absorb some noise. Or better
yet, use wall fabric, which is like wallpaper except that
it's fabric and more noise absorbing than paper. Fabric wall
art is also a good noise absorber.
Then there's Acousti-Coat. According to their website, it
is "a heavy bodied, water based flat latex paint formulated
with hollow ceramic microspheres, sound absorbing fillers
and resins. Acousti-Coat is for use on interior surfaces including
ceilings and walls, plaster, primed metal and wood. Acousti-Coat
can reduce sound transmission and reflection by 30%. Echo
within the room is reduced dramatically. This product is an
easy to apply surface coating and an inexpensive solution
for reducing sound transmission."
Checklist for having noise-absorbing soft surfaces for your
bedroom:
- Thick
carpeting instead of hard floors
- Thick
drapes / curtains
- Wallpaper,
wall fabric or sound-absorbent paint
See how
soft surfaces compare to other noise solutions in the comparison
grid.
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