5 Funny Home Features to Help Couples Live (And Love) Together in Peace

They say home is where the heart is—but it’s also where arguments about the thermostat, dirty dishes, and suspiciously long bathroom breaks happen. Living with a significant other isn’t all heart-shaped pancakes and Netflix marathons; sometimes, it’s a battle over who last touched the remote.

TV personality and real estate veteran, Barbara Corcoran, recently shared that the most important home feature for a long, happy marriage is for couples to have separate bedrooms.

It’s a trend that’s becoming increasingly more common amongst married couples, and it sparks an interesting question—what other home features could help couples keep the peace?

Here’s a (somewhat) tongue-in-cheek list of 5 home features that could save a relationship—or at least make cohabitation a little less dramatic:

1) A Two-Zone House

It’s all-too-common for one partner to want the thermostat set to “Tropical,” while the other wants to feel like they’re wintering in Antarctica. So just split the house into climates using a dual-zone thermostat. With separate climate controls, you can each live in your weather fantasy without waging a daily “cold war” over the dial.

2) Separate Kitchen Sinks

Pretty much every couple has a clean freak and a… well, a person who annoys the heck out of the clean freak. One keeps the sink spotless, the other has perfected the art of leaving a single bowl with dried cereal cemented to the bottom. With separate sinks, you can each live your own truth. Your clean sink stays pristine, and their “science experiment” stays out of sight.

3) Two Dishwashers

Dishwasher debates are a tale as old as time. One person has a meticulously optimized system (plates face inward, obviously), while the other seems to think the little slots and sections of the dishwasher are just there as a suggestion. But with separate dishwashers, the neat-nic doesn’t have to constantly reorganize the other one’s mess again, and their partner never has to hear how “your way wastes water and doesn’t get the dishes entirely clean” anymore.

4) A “Safe” Room

Sometimes, you just need to hide. Whether it’s to escape a passive-aggressive comment about laundry or dodge an ill-timed “Are you in the mood?”, a designated “safe” room is your sanctuary. Bonus points if it’s stocked with snacks, noise-canceling headphones, and a lock. Consider it a tiny timeout for grown-ups.

5) Soundproof Bathroom Walls

Some things are better left unheard—like your partner belting out Livin’ on a Prayer in the shower or, um, “other” bathroom-related sounds. Soundproofing ensures you’ll never have to listen to whatever’s going on in there. It also allows the person on the inside of the bathroom to legitimately claim they truly never heard you any of the 7 times you asked how much longer they’d be in there, and whether they were planning on helping to put the kids to bed, because we’re all tired you know…