Choosing a Nightstand That Actually Works

Bedside tables are bought to match a bed and used for a set of specific jobs, and the dimensions that matter are rarely the ones people compare.

Height Is the Specification

The surface should sit at roughly the height of the top of the mattress, or slightly above it.

Too low and you reach down and across, which means knocking things over in the dark. Too high and it looms over the bed and blocks light.

Mattresses have got considerably deeper, so a nightstand that suited a bed twenty years ago is too low for a modern one. Measure your actual mattress top, not the frame.

What It Has to Hold

• A lamp, which takes most of the surface
• A phone, charging, which is where the cable question starts
• A glass of water, and somewhere it will not be knocked
• A book, and somewhere for reading glasses
• Medication, in some households, which has its own considerations

Nightstands listed with their dimensions and any built-in charging, of the kind at stellamia.org, allow the surface area to be checked against that list rather than assumed.

The Cable Problem

The reason built-in charging exists. A phone charged beside a bed usually means a lead running from a wall socket, across a floor or up the back of the furniture.

A cable across a bedroom floor is a trip hazard in the dark, which is when bedrooms are actually crossed. One under a rug is worse: wear is invisible and heat is trapped.

Where charging is built in, devices should still charge in open air rather than inside a closed drawer, and never under bedding.

Medication Storage

Worth a specific note. A bedside drawer is where medicines frequently live, and it is the least secure place in a house.

Anything that must be kept from children belongs in a locked or high cupboard rather than a bedside drawer, however convenient.

Taking medication in the dark, half asleep, is also how doses get confused, and a light and a labelled organiser prevent that.

Drawer or Open Shelf

A drawer hides clutter and becomes a place things are lost. An open shelf stays visible and stays tidy only if it is edited.

Most people do better with one small drawer and one open shelf than with three drawers.

Two Should Match Each Other

Buy the pair together, since finishes vary between production runs.

Anchor Tall Ones

Any tall narrow unit in a bedroom, particularly one a child enters.

Measure the Gap

Between the bed and the wall, before ordering.