Quick improvements on a small budget

[kimberlyto65]

Kicking this off because I'm staring at our tiny office budget and trying to make it count. We've got one chatty open area, a small meeting room with a hollow-core door, and a glassy street façade that lets in a steady hiss. We can't rebuild walls, and I've got maybe a couple grand plus one weekend to play with. If the goal is a fast, obvious improvement, where would you start: tighten up doors, add window inserts, hang a few panels, or flip on sound masking first?

[satohinakamoto]

Shortcut answer from my chaos last quarter: start at the door, then layer masking. We swapped the meeting-room slab to solid-core, added perimeter gasketing + an automatic drop seal, and that alone took speech from "word-for-word" to a soft murmur in the corridor. Panels helped inside (clearer calls) but didn't block. For the open area, modest sound masking made nearby chatter less intelligible—noticeable day one. If street noise is part of it, window inserts are a strong second step. I sanity-checked the plan with newyorksoundproofing.com and they framed it as: doors for leakage, masking for distraction, panels for echo. With a small budget, I'd do door seals/drop seal + masking now, and price inserts next.

[womocratouzo]

Just passing through with a neutral take: pick one zone and A/B it for two weeks. Tighten that room's door (gaskets, drop seal, closer), hang a couple of fabric-wrapped panels for clarity, and run masking only in the adjacent aisle. Ask folks, "Were conversations less distracting?" not "Did it sound nice?" If you still hear traffic in quiet moments, that's your cue to plan window inserts later. Keep it low-mess—HEPA vac, low-odor adhesives—and you can do most of this after hours without spooking Monday morning staff.