Acoustic panels in the living room: less din, more calm

Big windows, hard floors, very little fabric and an open-plan kitchen – that describes a lot of today’s living rooms. They’re lovely to live in, but they often sound like a sports hall. Conversation at the table turns into a din, the television needs turning up, and every mug put down on the worktop can be heard across the flat. Acoustic panels help without changing the character of the room, and well chosen, they become part of it.

Why living rooms echo

Sound bounces off hard surfaces: glass, plaster, tiles, floorboards and worktops. The more of them there are, and the fewer soft things – curtains, rugs, upholstery, books – the longer sound keeps travelling round the room. In an open-plan living room with a kitchen and dining area, there’s also a lot of volume: sound has a long way to go to the walls and a long way back.

Long reverberation is most noticeable when there are several people in the room. Everyone speaks a little louder to be heard over the reflections, and the noise builds quickly. That’s why, in some living rooms, a dinner conversation becomes tiring after an hour.

How much reverberation in a living room

A living room doesn’t need to sound like a studio. A reverberation time of about 0.5 s works well: conversation is clear and the room keeps a natural, lively sound. Sparsely furnished living rooms often have 0.8–1 s or more. See what yours might be:

Fabrics first, then panels

Before you plan any panels, look at what you already have. A large rug, heavy curtains, an upholstered sofa and a full bookcase absorb or scatter a lot of sound. In many living rooms, panels are the finishing touch: they add absorbing surface where you can’t, or don’t want to, add more fabric – on large plain walls, above the sofa, by the table.

Where to hang panels in a living room

Panels do most on large, smooth walls, especially where two bare walls face each other. Sound bounces back and forth between them, creating a fluttering echo. Clap your hands in the middle of the room: if you hear quick, metallic repeats, a panel on one of those walls will reduce them noticeably.

Good places include:

• the wall above the sofa where you usually talk,
• the wall beside the dining table,
• the side walls next to the television, if film sound matters to you,
• a large, empty wall opposite the windows.

Open-plan kitchens and dining areas

In a living room that opens onto the kitchen, most of the noise comes from the table and the worktop: conversation, crockery, appliances. Hard cupboard fronts and tiles reflect it towards the seating area. A panel or two on the wall by the dining table reduces the din at mealtimes, and a panel on the wall between the kitchen and the seating area keeps kitchen sounds from reaching the sofa so clearly.

A panel as part of the decor

A made-to-measure panel doesn’t have to pretend it isn’t there. You can treat it in two ways. A colour close to the wall makes the panel almost disappear, leaving the texture of the fabric and a soft edge. A contrasting colour turns it into a feature, much like a painting or a textile on the wall. You can also order a panel with your own print – artwork that picks up the colours of the room, for example.

Arranging several panels

A group of panels looks calm when they share a line. The simplest arrangement is a row of identical panels with equal gaps, lined up with the sofa or sideboard below. You can also combine panels of different widths but the same height, or step them, as long as one edge – top or bottom – stays in line.

Gaps of 5–15 cm between panels look tidy and don’t reduce their effect – the edges of the panels absorb sound too. Because you set the size to the centimetre, you can plan the arrangement to match the width of the sofa or an alcove exactly.

Choosing panel sizes

On a large living-room wall, a few well-proportioned panels look better than lots of small pieces. A good rule of thumb is for the arrangement to take up about two thirds of the width of the furniture below it – the sofa, sideboard or table. Above a 220 cm sofa, that might be a single 150 × 80 cm panel, or three panels side by side, each 45–50 cm wide. Vertical panels make a room feel taller; horizontal ones calm it down and widen it. If you’re torn between two sizes, mark both out on the wall with masking tape and live with them for a day or two.

Colours

The fabric collection is muted: light shades for white and grey walls, warm ones for rooms with wood, dark ones for contrast. Before you decide, look at the samples on your own wall at different times of day. There are more tips on our Colours page.

5 or 10 cm in a living room

In most living rooms, 5 cm is enough. Choose 10 cm if the living room doubles as a home cinema, or if it’s noticeably boomy at low frequencies. Both thicknesses look the same from the front; they only differ in depth.

A step-by-step plan

1. Clap your hands in a few places around the room and note where the echo is strongest.
2. List the large, smooth surfaces: walls without furniture, windows, the wall behind the TV.
3. Estimate the panel area you need with the calculator above.
4. Pick two or three walls and plan arrangements on them that share a line.
5. Fit the panel sizes to your furniture and alcoves – the configurator takes sizes to the centimetre.
6. Order the sample kit, look at the colours on your own walls and only then choose the fabric.

Common mistakes

The first is a single small panel in the middle of a large wall. It looks accidental and does little acoustically – several panels, or one large panel fitted to the wall, work better. The second is putting every panel on one wall while equally bare glass or plaster faces it. The third is hanging panels too high, up near the ceiling, where they look nice but miss the reflections from people sitting at the table and on the sofa.

Typical sets

• A living room of 20–25 m²: three 80 × 100 cm panels above the sofa and one or two by the table.
• An open-plan living room with kitchen, 30–40 m²: six to eight panels spread over two or three walls.
• A living room with a TV: add panels either side of the television.