Tables de nuit

In Ireland, we love the term bedside locker and it gives us romantic notions of locking away all our precious things for safe keeping overnight. Sometimes people still use the older term nightstand which has lovely connotations of being ready for you and whatever you might reach for at night. The most modern term seems to be bedside table as these useful pieces of furniture are really there to provide a surface to keep things close to hand – your watch, phone, light, hand cream, lip salve, book or Kindle and possibly a table lamp.

Bedside tables work best if they are a proportionate height to your bed. It sounds obvious but beds are not a standard height – a divan bed is often quite high whereas a platform bed can be quite low to the floor. Generally speaking, your bedside locker should be about the same height as the top of your mattress or at most 5-10cm taller. Any taller than that and you can feel hemmed in at night. You can choose a nightstand that is shorter than your bed but remember not to make it too low as you will always be reaching down which can get uncomfortable.

The first question is how much space do you have? We love a large bedside table with plenty of surface area – ideal for water, book, lamp without fear of knocking anything off – but the space isn’t always available. If you have a large nightstand then a table lamp will fit on the top and still leave space for everything else but if you have a smaller bedside locker or a floating nightstand, then you may need to opt for a wall mounted side light so that things don’t get too cramped.

We find drawers invaluable! They are so good at hiding away all the bits and pieces that we somehow feel we need right next to our bed – 3 types of lip balm anyone? – that a bedside table without them has us in awe of all those incredibly organised people out there! But more seriously, a drawer will mean that you need a medium to large size nightstand so that the drawer is meaningful – at least 50cm width x 50cm depth. But if you can’t fit a drawer and still want a calm clear surface at night, consider investing in an attractive storage box that will keep everything neat and tidy.

Like all styling, the trick is to make sure that you have things of different heights that provide a nice mini skyline and visual interest. That might be topped out with your bedside lamp and followed by a photoframe or a vase and then something lower such as storage box. If the things you want next to your bed all seem to have the same height, consider using books to elevate the lamp for example and get that height differential.