I have a two bedroom apartment in Timonium the front of which faces Padonia Road. The small bedroom, which doesn’t have a front-facing window, is 125 square feet. The larger bedroom, which has a window facing directly into the parking lot — and Padonia Road past that — is 166 square feet. Neither bedroom is a master suite — one must leave either bedroom to get to the bathroom.

I get some grief on occasions from people who wonder why I use the larger as a den, and the smaller as a bedroom. My logic has always been simple: I put my bed, a nightstand, and a dresser in my bedroom. Into my den, however, I squeeze a computer desk, my lego hobby area (which consists of several tables and storage units and wall-mounted shelving), a television, and a few bookshelves. And, believe me, that room is very cramped and tight and borderline clausterphobic.

There are two other reasons I selected to make the smaller room my bedroom: the first of those is light. As I mentioned, the larger bedroom faces Padonia Road and the apartment’s parking lot. I also live on the ground floor. People pulling into or out of the lot, at night, would be shining their headlights directly into my bedroom. True, I could compensate for this by installing bomb-raid curtains, but why should I wish to do that?

A second reason is the temperature. The larger bedroom seems to be less well insulated than the smaller bedroom: there’s a noticeable drop in temp when walking into it from the rest of the apartment. I don’t quite know why this is, and am left to guessing as to possibly causes, among them, that the bedroom’s closet, enlarged by what appears to have once been used for a water heater (according to this floorplan), was never properly insulated after whatever was in there was removed.

In any case, tonight is one of those nights where I’m really glad my bedroom doesn’t face Padonia Road (and my neighbors above me probably regret it if theirs do). Since about 11am this morning, road crews from Baltimore County have had the eastern most stretch of Padonia Road (it dead ends shortly after you pass my apartment complex) blocked off. Twelve hours later, and they’ve moved some construction equipment in, they’ve got industrial lights set up, and the bada-bada-bada of a jackhammer is not quite rolling through my apartment’s walls.

I get the feeling a lot of my neighbors are going to be pulling their sheets over their heads tonight.