Your home is your safe place, and you should be able to relax there without an overwhelming amount of noise to distract you. Unfortunately, for those who live on busy roads or in areas of highly concentrated environmental noise, this is not as easy as shutting a window and turning on some music. If this is a problem for you, here are a few ideas to help shield you from the world outside.

Physical Barriers

Sound is a physical wave, after all; any obstacle that you can place in its way will help to reduce the amount you hear it. Often, this can be as simple as building a solid fence around your property, but you can also block out some sound with pretty garden elements such as bushes and trees. It isn't 100% effective, but just giving the sound another couple of layers to travel through before it reaches you will significantly lessen its impact on your home.

Seal Cracks

If there are any imperfections in the build of your home, particularly around doors and windows, these will certainly be admitting sound. As such, it's well worth having your home checked to ensure that this isn't a problem for you.

Strengthen Windows

Double glazing is often toted as a good way of maintaining the temperature of your home, but it is also highly effective at reducing noise. If you are able to afford it, you will notice a big difference. If not, achieve a similar effect by adding another layer to your windows by hanging thick soundproofing blinds, for example.

White Noise

You may have heard of white noise as a sleep aid. Played in the bedroom at night, it masks other sounds into a dull background hum and makes it much easier to fall asleep. It could do the same for cancelling out noise in your home. White noise machines vary in size and design, but they come at prices to suit all budgets. They're not for everybody, but they are absolutely worth trying if you need environmental noise management.

In effect, what you're looking to do is interrupt the sound's natural route to your home. Most often this is done with a tall, thick wall, but nobody wants ten feet of concrete all around the edge of their property. Instead, combining a number of the above solutions should help you to balance style and comfort and make your home a peaceful place once again.