Students who want bigger rooms usually cross their fingers and hope the housing gods are kind. Deans can knock down walls and expand into the room next door.

At least that was what happened this week, as workers tore into the Weld Common Room to enlarge Assistant Dean of Freshman Eleanor A. Sparagana's living quarters.

Workers on the site estimated that the common room will lose about 160 square feet, leaving it about half of its former size. A small kitchen for student use attached to the common room will remain unscathed.

Sparagana wrote in an e-mail message that the purpose of the construction is to make her apartment equivalent in size to the rooms of other deans, who previously had more space.

Weld residents will still have adequate room to gather, Sparagana said. Besides the Weld Common Room, there is an observatory that will soon get new furniture and a study room in Weld basement, she said.

"Weld actually has three different common areas for students to congregate in," she said.

Dean of Freshmen Elizabeth Studley Nathans said in an e-mail message that the Weld Observatory is "one of the prime spaces in Harvard Yard, with stellar views, bright sunlight and many creative possibilities."

Nathans said the extra space was needed so that in the future deans with partners could live there.

"We knew that we would eventually have to reconfigure the apartment to avoid the possibility of being constrained in some future search by limitations which are irrelevant to candidates' qualification," Nathans said.

The room was originally small because of building codes that existed six years ago, when Weld was redone.

Sparagana's addition comes after six years of improvements to first year housing--including improvements to common rooms in Straus Hall, Canaday Hall and Apley Court, Nathans said.

Nathans has had her own housing problems. Last spring she objected to the opening of a Nantucket Nectars juice bar next to her Dunster St. residence, claiming it would create too much noise.

Nathans declined to answer a question pertaining to the incident.

James J. Choi, a summer school student from Atlanta, Ga., observing the construction said he was disappointed to see the common room get smaller.

"I would like to have a common room," he said."Some place where all the students can cometogether and hang out.

Workers at the site took the opposite stance.

"A happy dean is a good dean I say," said oneworker, who asked not to be identified.

When asked about disagreement surrounding therenovations, Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis'68 wrote in an e-mail message, "I think...[TheCrimson is] creating a story out of nothing here.