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Comment by margalabargala | Hacker News Reader

This seems like a case of lots of small incremental changes being slower, more expensive, and ultimately worse than one big change that addresses the problem.

The office shown is extremely large and already big enough for two people, as was initially tried. The only real problem is the noise.

Instead of having a bunch of work done trying to change the nature of the closet, it seems like the best solution would be to have the contractor construct an entirely new wall dividing the office room in two. Rather than being in a small closet, they now have a large room, with a big window and door, etc. A real wall blocks the noise they're concerned about.

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I suggested that to my partner! He was not a fan of having a whole wall installed, sadly. It also would have been a bit difficult as that office space had a high ceiling, skylight, and basement entrance exactly where walk would go. I still fantasize about it though.

Looking at the floor plan I'm curious if some of the storage area is up for grabs. If it's currently unfinished space then it's an opportunity to build in a lot of noise isolation (separated inner wall and a lot of insulation) with shelves on the outside to maximize the remaining storage area.

Yep, I suggested that as well, but I assume it'd be at least 10K, since the "storage room" still has its garage door from when it used to be part of the garage. So that whole wall would need to be re-built, and the room would need to get ducting, vents. Extra 5 or 10K for that conditioning? Soo, it might happen one day, but I'm not ready to go all in on that yet.

You can run an in-wall unit for a space like that. They're very efficient now, and the nicer models are both way cheaper than routing central air, and very quiet.

The bigger thing is, if it's a garage, it's likely not insulated, which means you'd have to do so for noise/efficiency. Probably still way better than having a desk in your toddler's room though.

Ah, yes I would imagine cost to do the work in the Bay area would be pretty significant unless you can do much of it yourself. Being nonstructural it's not high risk to DIY but with small kids around that's a big project.

Framing a wall that size 1K. Insulation and drywall 2K. Mini split single zone 3K. Unpermitted contractor level handyman.

Did you at try to lower the noise near your partner? Looking at the picture, I think a carpet and curtains would help. (I do realize that the picture was taken by the realtor before selling to you.)

This might help to remove your partner's remaining voice from recordings at least in your current situation.

There are thermal curtains now. We could carpet that space, though carpets are a pain to wash, and that area also gets treated as a mud room, sooo yeah, probably would get too messy.

I might try hanging up the acoustic sound panel at the start of the curtain track in the bedroom to see if that helps. I suspect the sound waves will just ...wave around it? But I am clearly not an audio engineer. :)

What about just a divider? I got this wonderful free standing curtain rod that uses extendable floor to ceiling rods to keep it in place. It’s really good at breaking up rooms

The sound would be unbearable. We are both really loud. We need some sort of door or wall between us at the minimum.

I have used those dividers just for visual backdrops in the past though, they're handy.

A lot of sound can be absorbed by just introducing mass, e.g. a full bookshelf. Shelves need bracing for earthquakes, but if you think of "library quiet", a lot of that is created by how the space is filled, not because people actually behave differently in a library.

Ground vibration also needs mass to dampen, and it's harder to solve without expensive treatments since it ultimately depends on placement relative to loadbearing elements - jumping up and down on a structural beam will be overall less noisy than the flooring in between.

That said, you can lower the frequency by borrowing the techniques of weightlifting platforms: alternating layers of a dense rebond foam and wood.

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