Urban living is noisy - we all know that and it's largely a price we're prepared to pay. But during the last summer I spent at my previous house, in W6, one of my neighbours brought home a new girlfriend who'd obviously learnt everything she knew about sex from the entertainment industry. She was a howler. And our neighbour's bedroom was in the loft conversion of their terraced house - across the road. She was a howler in a loft conversion. And it was hot. So they opened the Velux. Which was above the bed. So she was a howler in a loft conversion with her head stuck out the roof. So I'd pull down our rattly sash window, which would cut out a bit of the howling - but it also meant the sound of our nextdoor neighbour, whose lounge was next to our bedroom, somehow seemed amplified. She had one of those strangulated finishing school accents that I can't listen to without getting a sympathetic sore throat... and she used to drink late into the night and bawl down the phone about her latest love lost. It was like living between Bridget Jones and Brittney Skye. So where's this heading? At the time, I looked into sound insulation techniques. But I was always too tired to do a thorough job. Here's ace Manhattan design blog ApartmentTherapy with some up-to-date ideas for muting the sound of outside.