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Comment by ibejoeb | Hacker News Reader

Many people with families, or even just DINKS, would opt for private offices. Unless you've got a giant home with private space, working at the same time and while your home life goes on around you is pretty bad.

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I've only got a small home. We finally turned the smallest bedroom into an office for me and the wife. It's great, and much more comfortable than commuting to an open plan noisy office. I have more desk space and nicer equipment at home.

Do you both use the office at the same time? Is it used a working office or more like a meeting room for when you need privacy?

Yes, we do use it at the same time. We also have times when we need privacy and one of us has to work elsewhere. Mostly it's just me in the office though as my wife doesn't need it as often.

My home isn't huge, just a raised ranch. But I was able to build a soundproofed office in a corner of my basement and it's worked like a charm.

I was in an airport a few weeks ago and saw a new array of soundproof "phone" booths fitted with laptop stands and high-output lighting, and it occurred to me that I should have started a business building and selling those over the past 3 years.

Anyway, I'm thinking more about city dwellers who generally live in apartments.

> Anyway, I'm thinking more about city dwellers who generally live in apartments.

That’s a lifestyle that makes significantly less sense for remote workers in the long run though.

I'm with you. But a lot of people still want to live in the city and not go to the office. So, I'm suggesting that, for that cohort, dedicated private offices might be compelling. It means that you probably have a short commute; you can reclaim space in your home that might have been used for work; still live in city and have access to the social offerings there; and that you retain your privacy, and potentially have even more if the case that you're co-habitating.

Higher end 'luxury' apartment buildings are frequently offering FCFS hoteling spaces and also rentable-as-you-need locking private spaces in the building as well as the modern phone booths in various parts of the buildings. If you have the income and that fits your desires you can have the city life and WFthe building you live in.

That would be a great amenity.

If you are content to have your household and neighbors as your entire social world.

I know lots of people with very active social lives who don’t live in city apartments. If anything, I’ve found city folk to be less sociable.

How were you able to soundproof it? I have an office (upstairs) that I would love to soundproof so that I don't have to wear my headphones all day.

Apparently bath towels can perform even better than bespoke acoustic paneling. I haven't tried it, but there are tons of tutorials. Here someone testing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eKwb58vvFI

This is the original one I saw when I considering doing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pABvTWSxOes

One more DIY with fabric and rock wool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPEouyiEt3Q

Effective soundproofing is tricky.

I had to wade through a lot of conflicting advice when I did it.

I suspect a big factor is that most people do only a handful of implementations, and might overgeneralize the lessons they draw.

Also, for a given structure and environment, most people can only afford to try 1-2 soundproofing approaches (wall structure, ventilation, etc.) So it's hard to know if they picked a good point in the tradeoffs space.

There's a lot of structure-specific details. Happy to DM if you want, I enjoy the topic.

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