You need more soft surfaces. I agree that I don't love rugs in the dining or kitchen. I would get the largest rug I could fit (withing two feet of the walls maybe) for the living room and the entrance hall. Hang floor to ceiling curtains on every window. Get large scale artwork on canvas (not framed with glass). Put a runner on the staircase. Don't wear shoes in the house...

I think you could use a rug under your dining table (make sure it is large enough for all the chairs to be pushed back and still stay on the rug) and another long runner in the kitchen. I have thick wool rugs in both those areas and have never had problems keeping them clean. Get rugs with some pattern and color.

Carpet w a pad and upgrade the pad . You don’t want to lay carpet ? then the largest area rugs w as dense pad as you can locate. noise mitigation is becoming a common desire ....people living near airports and highways and generally more urban . Think of those lined thermal curtains in hotel rooms . You can source lining and interlinings for fabric panels and valances for windows. The sound bouncing around inside will be interrupted w these kinds of selections . Believe it or not they even have acoustic paint. I would start w your floors and windows . Even something like a pad on table w thick tablecloth will help. No one gets pine cabs but softer wood like that is also more “buffering”. (Ha ha .... i live in urban setting near highway....we just put in sound windows and i read on this as much as I could- the windows are fabulous and I have some lined fabric panels) ....you have to break up and absorb the sound bouncing off those surfaces

Adding lined curtain panels and more rugs will help. Look into ruggables for the kitchen and dining room. They are able to be pulled up and washed. Dining room rug should be 4 feet wider and longer than the table.

Velveteen drapes - we had antique satin drapes in our bedroom and replaced them with velveteen (not for sound reduction - cat ruined the satin ones!). I couldn't believe the difference in sound reduction from outside. I was actually sleeping better. Started researching - and velvet and velveteen are considered great materials for drapes for sound reduction. Possibly velveteen pillows if you don't want drapes?

I'm sorry to say but the walls were keeping the noise in check. You can add large area rugs in every spot you can think of. Think of noise as marbles bouncing around in your room. Every time a marble 'hits' a hard surface it rebounds and moves to another surface (echo). This happens until the marbles run out of energy (multiple echos in one room).

Now image every room has 6 sides (4 walls, 1 ceiling, 1 floor). The flooring is the most NATURAL place to put noise reducing materials. A cork floor would do the same for you as wall to wall carpet. If you do not want to replace the flooring in this space, you will need to look at other options and other surfaces.

LARGE area rugs (in the dining and living space...as LARGE as you can get without running up the wall = best option) will help. Using thick, dense window coverings that are CLOSED will help a lot (glass LOVES to create echo...imagine the sound of marbles bouncing off glass...for hours at a time). You can mount LARGE wall art in soft finishes.

And then there are the ceilings. The ceilings take up just as much square foot space as the floors. Acoustic wall/ceiling panels can be installed to get rid of the noise/echo. But the walls would have done a better job.

I'm sorry you are going through this. It is never fun to find out the noisy down side of 'open' living spaces. So many people rejoice at the large expanse only to discover the echo (even when NOTHING is going on) is enough to drive you crazy.