I recently had a water problem in my basement where I had my dedicated theater set up (ice maker to the refridgerator in my kitchen broke in the middle of the night and the water drained right down into the basement). Therefore, I had to move my theater up to the living room for what will probably be six months or so. The problem is, I have steps leading to the second floor from the living room so sound becomes an issue. The living room is 18X13 with the steps in that back left portion of the room (behind the seating area). While I don't need to kill the sound completely (and won't be able to without a major renovation), I do want to block some of the sound from going straight up the steps. This will allow us to at least enjoy the theater at lower levels when the kids go to bed and not have all the sound end up going up the steps.

My thoughts were to buy a piece of rigid foam insulation. I think they come in 2 inch or 4 inch thickness and about a 4x8 size sheet. I could then cut it down and set it on the bottom step. It will then be floor to ceiling and cover the opening. Then, I can easily remove it and set it in the back of the room in the back corner on the other side of the room when not in use. Of course this won't completely kill all sound but at least should muffle conversations and television sound if we are just casually watching a sporting program or sound from a movie.

Has anyone ever had a similar situation? What did you do? Does anyone have any other ideas?

Please note, I am not interested in putting up a door or going through any extra work as I don't want to then have to uninstall something when I put the theater back downstairs.

headphones

headphones plus bass shaker or butt kicker

closed captioning?

(sorry)

I don't care for headphones because 75% of watching is sporting events, etc. and discussions with family and friends happen during the games.

I do have butt kickers in the seats so that is covered.

Not much into reading when I want to sit down and watch TV, so closed captioning will not work. I realize you were being funny and I did find it funny.

Still curious to see if anyone has a creative option.

Focus on sound proofing the rooms that you are trying to keep sound from reaching. So if it is a kid's room, consider getting a solid core door, or filling the door gaps. Foam isn't going to do diddly.