Soundproofing on top of a kitchen floor?
Hi gurus, A new twist on soundproofing.!
Our kitchen is above our rental apartment’s bedroom, and we have toddlers with all the galloping and occasional squeals that entails. The ceiling below has some soundproofing, but the kids can still easily be heard from below. And we are not going to tear that ceiling down.
So, what can we put on our KITCHEN FLOOR that will both soundproof and not collect food crumbs? I have found some attractive vinyl floor mats – I’m thinking of putting floor mats down with the vinyl coverings somehow glued on top. This will probably cost $1-1.5 K for the 9 x 14′ kitchen floor.
Am I crazy? Does anyone have any other ingenious ideas? (other than ripping up our parquet kitchen floor 🙂
Thanks so much for any ingenious ideas you could share!!!
citizenjane
in General Discussion 4 years and 9 months ago
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citizenjane | 4 years and 9 months ago
I would also add that we are looking to cover a 9′ x 15′ surface, so we can’t really plan to wash a rug(s) this size every week. It just isn’t feasible.
citizenjane | 4 years and 9 months ago
Thanks for all of your replies! With 2 toddlers, I’m still worried about dirt and other thrown food and drink getting stuck in the crevices of rugs and attracting bugs. I found this option – has anyone tried anything like it (vinyl floor mat)? It is very pricey for what it is, but with a soundproofing mat beneath it and covering the whole floor, it might do the job. What do you think???
Thanks again!
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 4 years and 9 months ago
RE: oriental rugs in a kitchen; We have two small ones in our kitchen (Turkish, not Persian) and they hold up quite well. Handmade wool rugs are usually far more resilient than machine made ones.
cate | 4 years and 9 months ago
What OP suggest sounds expensive and less than ideal. For an ordinary floor, options might include Marmoleum or cork tile. But for parquet, I agree with the posters above you don’t want to cover it and can just add a rug. Since it’s a kitchen, keeping it washable is best. On a long hallway, friends of ours put down the thickest rug pad money could buy and topped it with an area rug runner. Also be aware that sometimes joists and other conditions under the flooring sometimes magnify the sound of footsteps below and there’s not a ton you can do about that — but taking off shoes in the house and stepping softly always helps.
brokelin | 4 years and 9 months ago
I second the rag rug idea. I had a 6′ x 9′ rag rug in a kitchen for three years, and loved it. (I’ve had smaller cotton rag and cotton chenille rugs in many other kitchens.). The advantage of a large rag rug is that it really absorbs sound. I would have never thought of putting a large rug in a kitchen before that first one, but I had a square kitchen with three windows and original pine wood floorboards, and every kitchen dish sound echoed horribly in the room, so I added the rug just to absorb sound, and it did quiet the room a lot so I no longer heard an echo whenever I was in the kitchen. It also felt great underfoot. I was on the first floor, and wasn’t seeking to make it quieter for anyone below, so just used a thin honeycomb rug pad, but you could use a thicker dense rug pad (I recommend the ones that look like dense wool fibers that they recommend for good Persian rugs rather than the ones that look like yellowish foam that condenses easier), and that would soak up even more sound.
The great thing about it was it was very stain resistant, surprisingly so. I used to be able to spot wipe up spills with a rag with water and dish soap, even stuff like tomato sauce, with ease, with no trace of the stain left. Plus, they are very washable. My 6 x 9 would fit in the triple washer and dryers at the laundromats, and I’d give it a wash every so often (not often at all, really, as it was heavy to transport to the laundromat in my cart, and took numerous cycles to dry.) The washer took out general dust and dirt – it wasn’t needed for any stains, though I spilt stuff on it regularly. I just wasn’t much for vacuuming then – I don’t think I even owned a vacuum yet – it would probably stay cleaner if you vacuumed it regularly. I used to sweep up crumbs from it with a broom easily. And later used one of those old-fashioned manual sweepers with two revolving brushes inside. With a larger one, you could send it out to a rug cleaner. Or use a number of smaller ones if you want to cover all open floor spaces and your room floor isn’t sized like a rug. Also, multiple smaller ones would be easier to put them in a washer, and smaller ones can be washed in home washers.
Mine was one color, and a light color at that, and yet it still stayed really clean, so much so that I used it bedrooms in other homes after I moved on and had smaller kitchens – it wasn’t ruined from kitchen use, but still looked like new. I gave it to a family member after 20 years of use when I no longer had a place for it in one home, having bought lots of wool rugs for my other rooms, but I often wish I still had it, having moved again – I could have used it in a few subsequent kitchens.
If you got one of the multicolored ones, it would hide any dirt or stains more – I didn’t have kids, but I cooked and spilled stuff regularly. You just need to get a well made one. Some smaller ones are not woven as well, so they can come apart a bit over time. But I have never seen a large one that wasn’t well-woven. I don’t see many solid-color ones like the one I had for sale anymore, and I did read on one rug store’s website that one company in India that made solid-color ones that looked like mine stopped making them a few years back. There do seem to be more multi-colored ones, or variegated shades of one color, for sale now. Just be sure to get one that looks like it is woven tight and not terribly thin, for durability.
I have some smaller Amish-made rugs made from old demin jeans in rag style – there are larger commercially-made denim rag rugs you can buy, which would also probably serve the purpose well and be even more durable (though possibly not quite as soft underfoot.)
If you really don’t want to wash a rug and want something kid-friendly, try looking at those those foam squares that look like puzzle pieces that fit together, like for children’s playrooms and gyms. These would be easy to clean. You could also use those as a rug pad for thicker foam under a thinner, more easily washed rug.. And I just saw an ad online recently for a product that is a combination of a washable thin rug over a foam pad – you could check out those, though I don’t know how thick the rug pad is. You could easily create your own version with a thicker rug pad and a thinner rug – the Dash and Albert cotton woven rugs are nice, but pricier than rag rugs, and not as thick. But there are other thin rugs that are not made from natural fiber that are machine washable and clean well, and you could also consider synthetic outdoor rugs that are made from polypropylene (I think) that are easily washable with a hose. They might be easier to clean up spills from, and could absorb sound if placed over a thick rug pad.
One other thing I used when I wanted to protect old heart pine floorboards in another kitchen was a bamboo slat rug – the kind with the 5/8″ or so wide slats, (not the ones that are made with thin bamboo with lines of stitching like roller blinds), that are bound with fabric around the edges. I used that rug over a thin honeycomb rug pad, though the rug had some backing on it, but you could probably use it over a slightly thicker dense foam rug pad as well. That was easy to wipe up stains from, though it did stain more than my cotton rag rug did. I would take a scrub brush to it every so often to scrub it clean, but some evidence of staining remained after a few years. I’d probably use some sort of floor wax on one to prevent that if I were to use one in a kitchen again. It also felt great underfoot, and the typical bamboo color (the medium brown, not the light blond and not the dark-stained brown one) looked good with my wood floors. I looked for the ones made with mitered stitching at the corners where the fabric border is sewn on – that’s general sign of quality, plus the borders on those seem to be stitched on better than the ones that aren’t mitered.
You could also just have a carpet remnant bound into a rug – you could get the exact size and shape you wanted that way, and have a wide choice of colors. Nylon carpet cleans up fairly easily, I think, with home or commercial rug cleaning machines, and remnants can be found at carpet stores cheaply, and they will bind the edges for you. (I prefer sewed-on binding, but you may find more people tend to use glue to attach the binding now.) The first living room rug I ever bought was one of those, with the binding sewn on well – I purchased it used at a house sale – and it also still looked like new after years of wear, and I often wish I hadn’t sold that in one when I was moving cities.
I’ve also considered using old, flat, sort of decrepit Persian rugs in a kitchen – they can be bought cheaply and you can have them cleaned and use them over a rug pad. I find the wool that my Persian rugs are made from is very stain resistant, and the patterns they come in also would hide stains well, though I wouldn’t use a new or newish one in a kitchen.
Putnamdenizen | 4 years and 9 months ago
Maybe some sort of rag rug? Or maybe just tie rags to the kids’ feet? We have the same set up and I guess have just been lucky with our tenants. But I did rebuild the ceiling/floor, stuffed it with insulation and have double plywood with marmoleum on top.