Recently my company, Ant’s Eye View, moved our Austin office. We ended up with an incredibly awesome location on North Lamar Blvd that happened to be the scene of the Emporium in the movie Dazed and Confused. My co-workers decided to play up the famous location a bit so we’ve got the Emporium sign painted across a wall that spans multiple rooms and each conference room is named after a location in the movie. Oh, and there are movie posters and paddles for decorations.

After moving into the office, we found that the conference rooms had terrible echoes. To fix this, we decided to make sound dampening panels for each room. To complement the movie theme, each room has panels in solid colors that go with the location.

The Top Notch room (click to see sign colors):

The 50 yard line room:

The Moon Tower (pale yellow and dark blue in case you can’t tell):

Being crafty, I was the person who actually constructed the sound panels.

Materials:

• Sound dampening foam – we used 2′ x 2′ foam with a waffle texture and they look a bit like this
• Particle board – for mounting the foam and fabric
• Solid cotton fabric
• White felt (goes under the cotton to keep bumps from show as much)
• Mending plates
• Screws
• Staple gun
• Drill

Method:

Cut particle board into 2 x 2 squares. Cut fabric a few inches larger on each side and iron it. First put down the cotton, then the felt, then the sound dampening foam, and then the particle board. Fold in the corners sort of like you are wrapping a present and fold it over the back, pulling it tight.  Use the staple gun to tack down the fabric. Mark holes using the mending plate so that one hole just barely shows above the panel. I used two plates for the 2 x 2 panels. Drill a small hole and then use a screw driver to screw in the small holes. You’re now ready to hang your sound panels!