The biggest opening in a wall is a doorway. One of the most effective ways to minimize room-to-room noise is to install solid doors, something you can easily do whether you’re remodeling or building.

Standard hollow-core interior doors are poor sound blockers. 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. But most of the sound doesn’t come through the door, it comes around the door, so you would need to install weather-stripping to provide a seal.”

Rubber bulb weather-stripping gaskets and a weather-stripped threshold should seal the gaps around the perimeter. Of course, solid-core doors are more expensive, but they are also available in a much broader selection of elegant styles.

If you were to replace and weather-strip an interior door, what would be the result? According to the NWWDA, “If you did all of this, you could probably end up with an STC [Sound Transmission Class] rating of 34–36.”

When planning for new doors and windows, also consider where sound travels. If possible, stagger doors along a hallway and arrange their swing so that they don’t deflect sound into adjoining rooms. Avoid sliding, bi-fold, and pocket doors where noise is a concern; they make noise and don’t seal as well as the swinging type.