Small Bedrooms Need Shallower Nightstands

A nightstand holds very little, a lamp, a book, a glass of water, a phone, but it is the piece of furniture you see last at night and first in the morning. It is worth getting one you like looking at.

Decide first how much you want hidden. A table with drawers or a small cupboard keeps the bedside calm. An open shelf or a simple table suits a tidy sleeper and shows off the book and the lamp. If your phone charges by the bed, a table with outlets or a charging top saves a trailing cable.

Then think of it as part of the bed. Dark wood and turned legs make a bedroom feel traditional, pale wood and fluting make it feel light, and black metal gives it an industrial edge. Height matters for comfort, and a table should line up with the mattress.

Narrow Solid Wood Nightstand With Drawers

The slim white table looks like something from a 1960s children’s book, in the nicest way, all rounded corners and tapered legs with one little gold knob. It is made for the gap beside a bed where a wider table won’t go. In white it nearly disappears against a pale wall, so the lamp becomes the feature, and the book you’re reading has a cubby of its own.

Tribesigns Solid Wood Nightstand With 2 Drawers

This is a nightstand that looks inherited. Turned posts, bun feet, and ring pulls give it the air of old cherry furniture, and it belongs beside a bed with a proper headboard, a patterned quilt, and a lamp with a pleated shade. In a bedroom of newer furniture, it adds some age.

HOMCOM Modern Bedside Table With Drawer and Shelf

A plain black nightstand is the white shirt of bedroom furniture, and the HOMCOM is a good version of one. It has a tidy Shaker look that goes with a wooden bed, an iron one, or an upholstered one. Black looks sharp against pale bedding and makes a brass or white lamp stand out. Buy two and the room has symmetry without anyone noticing the tables.

Homrest LED Nightstand With Wireless Charging

For someone whose phone is the last thing they put down at night, the Homrest makes sense. Set the phone on the glass top and it charges, with no cable to find in the dark, and a soft light around the top means you can skip the lamp for a midnight glass of water. The dark grey fronts and gold bar handles give it a smart, hotel look that suits an upholstered bed and crisp white linen.

Maupvit Floating Nightstand Set of 2

Hung on the wall, these two little boxes leave the floor under them clear, which makes a small bedroom look bigger and gives you somewhere to push a pair of slippers. Each has a fluted drawer front and an open cubby in a warm, honey-colored wood, a look that suits a low platform bed and a calm, Japandi room. They are sold as a pair, so both sides of the bed match, and with nothing touching the floor the whole bed wall looks lighter.

Tribesigns Round Nightstand With 4 Drawers

Round, polished, and stacked with four curved drawers, the Tribesigns looks less like a nightstand than a giant jewelry box. The deep red-brown finish and bronze ring pulls give it an old-world richness, and it looks the part beside dark wood, velvet, and a lamp with a silk shade. A round table also softens the corner beside the bed.

Maze F-SHELF Wall Mounted Bedside Table

From the side the shelf is a capital F, two shelves and an upright in pale wood, fixed to the wall beside the bed. Kent Johansson designed it for Maze, and it treats a bedside table as a piece of graphic design. With nothing touching the floor, it is as much a wall decoration as a table.

It suits a minimalist bedroom where everything is chosen carefully, and it can be hung to face left or right, so a pair can mirror each other across the bed.

HOMCOM Set of 2 Side Tables With Charging Stations and LED Lights

These two tables are a pair, but not a matching one. The drawer sits high on one and low on the other, so either side of a bed they look pleasingly offbeat. Rustic brown shelves on black steel frames give them an industrial, loft apartment look, and the open shelves want a stack of books, a plant, and a speaker. They’d be just as good flanking a sofa, and a strip of colored light is included for anyone who likes a glow in the evening.

Tribesigns 3 Drawer Solid Wood Nightstand

This one is all grain. The drawer fronts are thick slabs of rustic wood with soft, rounded edges and no handles, so what you see is knots and stripes from top to bottom. It is narrow and upright, a chest in miniature that would be at ease in a cabin. Put it with linen bedding and a wool rug. The warmth of the wood does a great deal for a white room.

Narrow Nightstand With 4 Tier Shelves and Charging Station

Tall, skinny, and open, here is a little bookshelf that happens to stand beside a bed. It is one for readers, with shelves for the pile you mean to read and the pile you’ve finished, and a mesh shelf at the bottom for slippers. A power strip set into the top takes the lamp and the phone charger. With its rustic brown shelves and black frame it has a student flat charm, and it would be useful beside an armchair as well.

Homrest Farmhouse End Table With Charging Station

A drawer on top and a little barn door below make the narrow grey table look like a miniature farmhouse cupboard. The cupboard hides the things that make a bedside messy, the tissues, the hand cream, the tangle of chargers, and there are outlets tucked in for the lamp and the phone.

White bedding, a checked blanket, and a wooden bed are the obvious companions for the washed grey finish and black hardware.

Tribesigns 2 Tier Nightstand With Trapezoid Base

A thick slab of a top on a tapering base, the table has the chunky, sculptural look of something cut from a single beam. It is a table in the plainest sense, a surface for a lamp, a book, and a glass of water, which suits the tidy sleeper who keeps nothing else by the bed. The rustic wood grain would be handsome beside a low bed with plain linen, and the opening in the base is a place for a small stack of books.

HOMCOM End Table With Wireless Charging Station

The industrial look in its simplest form is a dark, rustic wood top on thin black legs. The top has a charging spot built in, so the phone goes down in the same place every night and is ready in the morning. Pair it with a metal bed, dark bedding, and a lamp with a bare filament bulb. It is also easy to pull up beside a reading chair.

Fluted Nightstand Set of 2 With Charging Station

The pair has a cheerful mid-century look, in pale oak with fluted fronts, little gold handles, and splayed legs, and because there are two the bed wall is done in one purchase. White walls, a rattan headboard, and a few plants are all the company they need, and the light wood keeps a small room feeling airy.

Tribesigns Farmhouse Nightstand With Storage

An arch cut clean through a block of pale wood makes this table look like a little piece of architecture, a doorway or a bridge. It is wide and low, so it can carry a big lamp, a plant, and a carafe, and a basket tucked under the arch looks framed. Plaster-colored walls and rough natural textures would set it off.

HOMCOM 2 Tier Night Stand With Drawer, Grey

The look is an old telephone table, tall, slim, and painted a soft grey, with a brass cup pull on its one drawer. It is a pretty, slightly old-fashioned piece for a bedroom with a painted iron bed or a floral quilt, and it takes up very little floor. In a hall it would make a good perch for a plant.

SUPERJARE Nightstand With Charging Station

A relaxed, practical little table, the SUPERJARE suits a first apartment, a guest room, or a teenager’s bedroom. Rustic brown shelves and a black fabric drawer give it an unfussy look, the lamp and the phone plug in at the top, and it is light enough to move when the room gets rearranged.

Setting Up a Nightstand

A charging nightstand needs an outlet within reach of its cord, so check where the wall sockets sit before choosing a side of the bed. Floating tables need a stud or a wall anchor rated for the load, and a lamp, a phone, and a book add up.

Keep the path past the bed clear on both sides.