If you’ve got enough room either side of your bed, then it works brilliantly to fill that space with chests of drawers instead of smaller bedside tables.
WHY DOES IT WORK?
#1 – YOU USE THE SPACE EITHER SIDE OF THE BED MUCH BETTER
Unless you only have small spaces either side of the bed (or no space at all), then chests of drawers maximise the space available so well.
If you have space for a chest of drawers and only add in a bedside table, then you have a lot of extra space that can’t really be used for anything.
#2 – YOU DON’T NEED EXTRA UNITS IN THE ROOM AS A RESULT
Because you are utilising the space where you need a unit anyway – you are making the most of what you put there, and taking away the need to have a chest of drawers somewhere around the rest of the room as a result.
This then makes the room feel more spacious, less cluttered, and a nicer place to be.
#3 – YOU HAVE MORE STORAGE WHERE YOU NEED IT MOST
I have always found that standard sized bedside tables are too small for a master bedroom really.
They all too easily get crammed full of bits and bobs that are needed by the bed, but the small tables don’t really house everything I wanted there (books, medicine, pens, notepad, hand cream etc…). Some don’t have any storage at all and then leave unsightly wires trailing behind from bedside lights…
Because they get crammed, they look more cluttered than necessary – and that doesn’t agree with me one little bit!
#4 – IT LOOKS MORE IN PROPORTION
Lastly – from an aesthetic point of view – the proportions of the room look better when you put chests of drawers next to larger beds. They are wide enough to balance out a larger bed, and you can get them so that they match the height of the bed as well – so everything looks “right”.
Bedside tables seem to get somewhat drowned out if they are very narrow or low.
Let’s take a look at a few examples to show you exactly what I mean…
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As you can see from all three examples above, chests of drawers work so much better than bedside tables in the space that’s available.
In my own home it works really well because of the way the room is laid out.
We have the door on the wall opposite the bed, with a stretch of wardrobes along the rest of that wall. On the wall to the right is a radiator and then the door to our ensuite, and on the left of the bed is a wall filled with a bay window.
There isn’t really any space left for other units for storage – so because of this I wanted to maximise the areas next to the bed itself…
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WHERE DOES IT WORK BEST?
I wouldn’t go back to using smaller bedside tables – and think that it definitely works best in a Master Bedroom as it gives the room a sense of grandeur. Everything is to scale and the room feels more balanced.
It even works well in kids rooms by having a chest of drawers at the side of their single bed rather than a bedside table. Keeps the amount of furniture down and the cleaning less!
However, there is of course always a time and place for using smaller bedside tables: –
- Where space is tight
- Where you don’t need to store as much (i.e. guest bedrooms)
