We’ve removed walls to open up a sense of spaciousness. We’ve filled our kitchens with whiz-bang appliances and our family rooms with surround-sound home theaters. Noise has become a byproduct of our busy lives. It’s no wonder that we crave a little quiet. Noise pollution has become a problem.

Sure, noise pollution isn’t like lead in your paint or microbes in your water. It’s just an irritant. But it can mess up our sleep, add to our stress, infringe on our privacy, and generally steal from our quality of life.

Fortunately, there are a number of soundproofing or noise-reducing initiatives you can take. The most effective of these are best done during a building or remodeling project because they involve the way walls or other structural elements are built. But others are relatively easy fixes you can do next weekend.

Try some or all of these noise-remediation steps:

Seal holes.
Wherever air can leak through walls and around doors and windows, noise can leak, too. Using flexible acrylic latex or polyurethane caulk or foam sealant, seal the gaps around pipes, electrical boxes, heating registers or ducts, wires, or where any other objects penetrate the walls or ceiling. When doing new construction and installing switch and receptacle boxes and heating registers, never place them back-to-back in a wall.

Reduce noise makers.
If you’ve ever built a primitive “telephone” by stretching a string between two tin cans, you’ve learned that sound can travel along a solid object—a string—just as it travels through the air. When building, keep this principle in mind and choose flexible furnace ducts rather than rigid-metal ones.

Where possible, use resilient pads to separate pipes from framing members, or fill the holes where pipes pass through with expanding foam insulation. When plumbing faucets, provide air chambers to eliminate the water hammer that’s caused when you quickly shut off a faucet.

When building, insulate interior walls where you want to minimize the transfer of noise between rooms. Always pack insulation around pipes—especially plastic (ABS) waste and vent pipes, which are notorious for transmitting the rush of water when a toilet is flushed. When practical, opt for cast-iron drain pipes in areas where this would be a problem.

When purchasing new appliances, pay a little more for the quietest models. You might be amazed at the noise differences between conventional fans, dishwashers, and other typically noisy appliances and their newer, quieter counterparts.

If possible, isolate and enclose noisy equipment well away from sleeping areas. Dedicated equipment rooms with insulated walls and solid core doors are a good idea. In fact, solid-core doors between all rooms can significantly reduce noise that travels through the house.

Use sound-absorbing materials on floors, walls, and ceilings. Insulation tiles can cut noise greatly, as can carpeting. Avoid rigid, hard surfaces such as tile, concrete, and hardwood flooring.

Achieving a home that is quiet can take a little work. But when you’re ready to put up your feet in a quiet room and enjoy a good book, you’ll know it was well worth the effort. Silence is golden.