Free Household and Kitchen Sound Effects for Foley Work

About these household & kitchen sounds

House and kitchen sounds do a lot of the everyday foley work. They fill in the little actions people expect to hear but hardly ever notice. Cooking Bacon, Apple Cutting, Grating a Carrot and Salt Shaker cover the cooking. Opening a Tin Can, Soda Bottle Opening and Whipped Cream are the packaging ones. Around the house you've got Washing Hands, Fridge Opening and Closing, Chair Sliding on Hard Wood and Dryer Machine. And eating sounds like Eating Crackers work for ASMR and comedy.

Pick by the surface and the container, not the name of the dish. Cutting an apple sounds different from cutting bread because of how wet and dense each one is. And a tin can opening has a metal rasp that a plastic tub doesn't. If the action's on camera, you need a clip that matches its speed and number of moves. Three strokes of a grater won't fit a shot with six. Off camera, you've got more freedom, so just grab whichever recording is cleanest. For background beds, go with steady sounds like a dryer or a frying pan. And go easy on the one-off sounds.

Home foley is usually recorded close. So it comes out brighter and more detailed than it'd sound in a real room. Add a little short reverb that matches the room on screen. A kitchen is tiled and bounces sound around, and a carpeted living room doesn't. High-pass around 80 to 120 Hz to get rid of handling rumble without thinning the sound out. Watch out for harsh hiss on crunchy sounds like crackers and salt shakers. A gentle de-esser or a dip around 6 to 8 kHz keeps them from stabbing your ears. Put each action on its own track so you can nudge it into sync with the picture frame by frame.

Every sound here is free for personal and commercial projects, with no credit required. Read the license.