I started having problems stretching my arm to grab that water glass on my nightstand. Every night it seemed like I was performing my own version of a ridiculous choreographed dance routine above my bed. I eventually resigned myself to snoozing with my arm extended until I woke up enough to pull myself out of bed.
Most nightstands are made for spacious master bedrooms and mine was definitely not one of those. Fast forward through what I will henceforth call “the great furniture shuffle of 2019” and I realised just how much better my life could be. I had recently transitioned into a smaller bedroom.
The typical nightstand was taking up way too much space. Literally, every day I would have to jump over the top half of the thing just to throw on some clothes.
Something had to change.
Enter thin nightstands. Specifically, I’m talking about bedside tables that can be as skinny as six inches deep but still allow you to store all of your bedtime necessities. I bought one of my first super thin nightstands shortly after I began researching these problems.
It was a wooden and metal piece from West Elm. It wasn’t quite seven inches deep but stood at 24 inches tall. The taller silhouette allowed me to stack my books, glasses, phone charger and that cute ceramic dish I put my jewellery on without consuming too much floor space since the unit itself was tall and skinny.
The issue with this setup (and what I learned after buying another flimsy nightstand months later) is that not all super skinny nightstands are created equal. I learned this the hard way when I bought a cute acrylic piece from Wayfair. It was beautiful, but wobbly as heck.
Ended up having to return it after about a month of use. Let’s just say I popped my snooze button so hard that my bedside lamp fell off of the shelf. I immediately started devoting too much time to wall mounted options.
There’s something about having storage where your bedtime items aren’t actually touching the floor that feels kind of magical. Eventually I stumbled across a floating shelf that came with a small drawer attached from IKEA (Their LACK wall shelf with built in drawer if you want to look it up!). I installed it about 18 inches above my pillow.
It truly was a game- changer. Not only did the floor underneath my bed look instantly more spacious within my tiny room but now I could vacuum behind my bed without having to move the furniture Tetris style. Sure there were some problems.
Like the time I drilled through a water pipe (it didn’t burst or anything thankfully – it was a slow leak), cussed like a sailor, and had my neighbour Tom come over to help rescue me. But once it was actually up there? Genius.
Everything I needed was within arms reach and nothing cluttered up the floor. Closets get a lot of love when it comes to space saving techniques but bedroom corners are seriously overlooked. I found this triangular-shaped nightstand online that sounded impossible but trust me on this – and fits snug into the corner of my room next to my bed and window.
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It gives me just enough space for my bedtime essentials but because it’’t invade the walk path like a larger rectangle would. If you can’t install stuff to the wall (hello renters!) consider an over-the-bed table. I was skeptical when I first started seeing these but my friend Sarah has one of those C-shaped adjustable tables that slides under her mattress and rests perfectly on her bed frame.
She uses it for her morning coffee, night time reading, and stores all of her bedtime items on it. When she lifts it up, it completely disappears. Great for studio flats or even shared bedrooms where every inch matters.
Alright let me tell you about these stacking solutions because they’re. so. smart. Rather than buying one bulky nightstand, try purchasing two or three smaller ones that can either stack on top of each other or nest when you’re not using them. I picked up this trio of metal baskets in graduated sizes and LOVE that I can configure them however I want.
Sometimes I’ll stack them tall and narrow. Sometimes I’ll push them together and spread them across the wall. It’s a fantastic option because the pieces can be rearranged to suit your needs and it’s also great for when you have guests and need extra surface space on the fly.
If I have guests sleeping over I can easily separate the baskets to create multiple bedside tables. This may sound counterintuitive but when it comes to small space nightstands, height is more important than width. A tall and slender table can give you just as much storage as a shorter wider option.
These days I’m using a ladder style nightstand that is only ten inches wide but almost four feet tall. It has five shelves so I can separate my books from my chargers from that dang water glass I’ll never stop reaching over to grab during the night. There’ isn’t completely broke you either.
I’ve scored some of my best pieces from thrift stores and Facebook marketplace. Speaking of thrift stores, I found this vintage plant stand for $20 that doubles as the perfect bedside table. The staggered shelves are perfect for layered storage and being so slim it won’t overpower my tiny bedroom.
I even painted it and styled the heck out of it to make it look like I spent hundreds instead of dollars. At the end of the day, the best way to tell if you’ve chosen the right storage solution is whether or not it works for how you actually live your life – not how you think you should be living your life. I used to think I would keep my bedside table surface clean and clutter-free.
Newsflash – I am a person who reads multiple books simultaneously, keeps two water glasses by my bedside at all times, and charges approximately 17 different devices every night.
My bedside table had to work with my hectic nighttime routine, not fight against it. Measure.. twice, buy once.
Grab your measuring tape and make sure you know the exact dimensions you’re working with. That cute nightstand you saw online might be literally two inches too wide to fit in your room. Yes, I’ve learned this lesson more times than I”d like to admit and still autumn victim to it every time I see something adorable.
Think about how it will work in the real world. Glass tabletops are dusty and show fingerprints like nobody’s business. Pointy corners are brutal when you bash your leg on them in the middle of the night.
Lightweight materials can spell disaster when you’re scrambling to turn off your alarm clock. Yeah, it sounds cheap. But sometimes the less trendy but more practical option is the better option.
