What kind of acoustic problem you have
Before choosing a solution, work out which of these four problems you have: echo within the room itself, airborne noise coming from neighbours or the street, impact noise such as footsteps or furniture dragged in the flat above, or services noise such as downpipes, the lift or climate units. Each is solved differently, and decoration only fixes the first.
A living room that echoes when four people talk is not fixed by insulating the neighbour's wall. And the neighbour's TV does not go quiet because you put down a rug. Mixing them up is the most common way to spend money without noticing any difference.
How to describe it before the visit
For a week, note what you hear, in which room, at what time and with windows open or closed. Record a couple of episodes on your phone. Clap loudly in the empty room: if the sound lingers and rings, the problem is internal reverberation. If you hear conversations with recognisable words through a wall, it is airborne noise; if you hear dull thuds from above, it is impact.
With that description, the visit is far more useful. It also helps to know what is on the other side: the neighbour's bedroom, the stairwell, the light well or the street. It does not replace a specialist measurement when one is needed, but it points the conversation in the right direction.
Room echo: this is where materials help
Reverberation appears in rooms with hard surfaces and little fabric: wood or porcelain floors, smooth walls, large windows and high ceilings. In Eixample flats with ceilings over three metres high it is especially noticeable. The fix is to add absorbent surfaces: heavy fabric curtains, rugs, upholstered sofas, shelves with books, acoustic panels built into joinery or the ceiling.
This part really is interior design, and it is better decided in the design than afterwards: a ceiling with an absorbent finish or a wardrobe front with perforated panels blends in unnoticed. A decorative "acoustic" product bought later does less and shows more.
Noise from neighbours and the street
Airborne noise between homes is reduced with an independent lining: a frame separate from the existing wall, filled with mineral wool and faced with double board, with no rigid contact with the wall. It takes several centimetres per wall, and how well it works depends on details: sockets not placed back to back with the neighbour's, sealed joints, careful junctions with ceiling and floor. A flaw at one point cancels much of the result.
With street noise, the weak point is almost always the window and its shutter box, not the facade. Frames with good acoustic glazing and a well-insulated shutter box change more than any wall treatment.
Footsteps from above and your own floor
Impact noise from the flat above is the hardest, because the effective solution lies in the neighbour's floor, not in your ceiling. A false ceiling on resilient hangers with mineral wool reduces it but does not eliminate it. Better to know that before investing, so expectations are realistic.
What does depend on you is your own floor. If you switch to parquet or porcelain, lay a suitable impact-sound underlay beneath it and separate the floor from the walls. That protects the neighbour below, and some comunidades de propietarios require it. It is far cheaper to do during the renovation than to deal with a complaint later.
Services and spaces that need privacy
A downpipe running beside a bedroom, a badly placed climate unit or a ventilation duct linking two rooms all carry noise even when the walls are sound. In a renovation, downpipes are wrapped in acoustic material, equipment and locations are chosen with noise in mind, and ducts are kept from acting as a "telephone" between rooms.
In spaces where conversation must stay inside, like the consulting rooms of the 250 m² children's psychology centre we delivered in the Eixample in 2026, privacy is part of the use: doors, seals and ducts are designed with that in mind. In a home the same applies to a study or a bedroom next to the living room.
When to decide and how to ask for it
Acoustic solutions are decided before finishes are closed, because almost all of them live inside walls, floors and ceilings. When you are shown a proposal, ask which of the four problems it solves, how much thickness it takes and which construction details are critical. If the problem is serious, a specialist measurement gives an objective starting point. We coordinate the specialists and the work on site; send us your description of the noise and we reply within an hour.