Furniture & Layout
A nightstand should sit at the right height and hold what you need. Here is a warm, practical guide to choosing bedside tables that work and last.
A nightstand is small furniture with an outsized influence on how a bedroom feels and functions. It holds your lamp, your book, your glass of water, and the quiet rituals that bracket your day. Choose it well and it disappears into easy daily life; choose it poorly and you'll feel the wrong height every single night.
The most important measurement on a nightstand has nothing to do with looks — it's the height, and most people never check it. The goal is simple: the top surface of the nightstand should sit roughly level with the top of your mattress, give or take a little. When it does, your lamp throws light where you read, your phone is easy to reach, and you can set down a glass of water without groping into the dark or reaching uncomfortably down or up.
The reason this matters so much is that beds vary enormously in height. A low platform bed sits close to the floor, while a tall bed piled with a thick mattress and topper rises much higher. A nightstand that suits one would look and feel wrong beside the other. So before you shop, measure from your floor to the top of your made mattress, and carry that number with you. It's the single figure that turns a guess into a confident choice.
If you've already fallen for a table that sits a touch low or high, don't despair. A slightly low nightstand can be lifted with a small riser or simply paired with a taller lamp. A slightly high one can still work if the difference is modest. But getting the height close from the start saves all that fiddling, and it's the difference between a bedside table that serves you and one that quietly annoys you forever.
With height settled, turn to width and depth, because a nightstand has to fit both the bed it serves and the room it lives in. A common misstep is choosing a table that's dwarfed by a large bed, leaving it looking like an afterthought, or one so bulky it crowds the walkway and makes getting in and out a chore. The nightstand should feel proportional to the bed beside it — substantial enough to belong, slim enough to move around.
Measure the wall space on each side of the bed before you buy, and account for the path you walk to get in. You want enough room to pass comfortably without turning sideways or clipping a corner in the dark. If your bedroom is tight, a narrow nightstand or a wall-mounted shelf can hold the essentials without eating the floor, and it keeps that all-important walking lane clear. In a generous room, a wider table with a little more presence balances a big bed beautifully.
Measure the gap between your bed and the wall before you fall for anything. The prettiest nightstand in the world is useless if you can't squeeze past it to get into bed.
Don't forget the surface itself, since that's what you actually use. A tiny tabletop crowded by a lamp leaves nowhere for a book, your glasses, and a glass of water all at once. Picture your real bedtime kit and make sure the top can hold it with room to spare. A nightstand that forces you to choose between the lamp and the water glass isn't quite big enough, no matter how charming it looks.
Nightstands come in every configuration — open shelves, a single drawer, two drawers, a little cabinet, or just a bare tabletop — and the right one depends entirely on how tidy you actually are, not how tidy you wish you were. Be honest with yourself here. If your bedside tends to collect chargers, hand cream, medications, and a small drift of receipts, a closed drawer or cabinet is your friend, because it lets the surface stay calm while the clutter lives out of sight.
If you keep things minimal and love the look of a few books stacked in the open, then open shelving might suit you better, and it does make the table feel lighter and airier. There's no virtue in buying drawers you won't use, just as there's no point in open shelves that will become a jumble within a week. Match the storage to your real habits, and the nightstand will help you stay tidy instead of fighting you.
Think about the drawer's smoothness and depth too, if you go that route. A drawer that glides quietly is a small daily pleasure, while a sticky, jerky one is a nightly irritation in a room meant for rest. And a drawer deep enough to swallow a book, a notebook, or a tablet keeps the necessary-but-unlovely things handy yet hidden. Good storage is the quiet reason a nightstand keeps a bedroom feeling serene long after the day you bought it.
Finally, the question of one or two, and whether they need to match. A matched pair of nightstands flanking the bed creates a sense of symmetry and calm that the eye finds deeply restful, which is why it's such a reliable look. If you share the bed, two tables also keep the peace by giving each person their own surface and storage. For many bedrooms, a matching pair is the easy, elegant default.
That said, matching doesn't have to mean identical, and a little intention goes a long way. You can pair two tables of the same height and similar weight in different finishes, or echo a shape while varying the material, and the room still reads as harmonious because the proportions agree. What the eye wants most is balance — two pieces that feel like equals beside the bed — rather than a perfect mirror image. So if you find one nightstand you love and not its twin, look for a thoughtful partner rather than abandoning the piece.
Whatever you choose, let the nightstands speak to the rest of the room. A wood tone that echoes other furniture, a metal that nods to your lamps or hardware, a line that suits the bed — these gentle connections make the bedside feel like part of a whole rather than something parked beside the bed. Get the height right, size it to the room, choose storage that suits your real life, and balance the pair with a little care, and your nightstands will do their quiet, faithful work every night and every morning, exactly the way good furniture should.
Jonah writes about furniture and tight footprints — how to buy pieces that last, and how to make a small home feel generous. A lifelong apartment dweller, he's tested every space-saving trick there is and is blunt about which ones actually work. His rule: measure twice, buy once, and never sacrifice comfort for looks.
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