Best Nightstands of 2020
Our favorite nightstand is the Casual Home Night Owl. This nightstand is elegant, sturdy, and is the easiest to assemble. It arrived in three pieces with the drawers already built and installed in the body and included an Allen wrench for the hardware. It is made out of beautiful, solid wood and also has the added benefit of a built-in USB outlet. It even comes with a three-pronged phone charger.
The only downside is the size of the drawers. The Casual Home Night Owl barely fits a modest paperback book in the larger bottom drawer, and doesn't fit much more than pens and charging cables in the smaller upper drawer. However, if storage isn't an issue for you, this is a great option for a beautiful and convenient bedside table.
If you're looking for something a little more affordable, but don't want to compromise appearances, the Winsome Wood Henry Accent Table is a great option. It has a simple and beautiful design and is one of the less expensive nightstands we tested. It has a small magnet to keep the cabinet door closed and super light for easy transport. It has enough storage for anything you might need handy right before bed or right after waking up.
With the Winsome Wood Henry Accent Table, even though it looks nice, it is not made of the best material. The shelves are built of very thin and flimsy wood so that when you put anything heavy on them, they tend to sag. Although the assembly of the nightstand was fairly easy to manage, it was at times challenging to construct due to the flimsiness of the material. All in all, if you aren't planning on storing your exercise weights or larger books in your nightstand, this is a great option for a great price.
If you're looking for something more minimalist, the Bamboo Bedside Bed Shelf is small but sturdy and looks good attached to your bed. We felt comfortable loading the shelf up with books, phones, and even a cup, and there was little to no movement. This bedside shelf is easy to install, and also comes with a built-in USB port, which is always a nice feature, and works well on this small bedside caddy.
Because the Bamboo Bedside Bed Shelf is a bedside shelf, rather than a bedside table, there is no storage room. There isn't enough room for a lamp. However, it is great for quick and easy access to necessities like a book or a glass of water.
The Prepac Sonoma Tall 2-Drawer Nightstand is a great all-around option for a sturdy and attractive nightstand. It is made pleasing to the eye and built to last, with roomy sliding drawers and thick walls. The drawers have elegant knobs, and there is a delicate trim that frames the bottom of the shelf nicely. There is plenty of storage space in this bedside table, with two big drawers, and an open shelf at the top. Whether you're looking for some extra space to store some books, clothes, or art supplies this nightstand can handle it.
Of the nightstands we tested, the Prepac Sonoma Tall 2-Drawer Nightstand is one of the most difficult to assemble. This is due to the lack of labeling and vague instructions. The hardware all comes in one bag jumbled together, and the pieces of wood have no indicating numbers or letters either to help decipher the instructions. Even so, the nightstand doesn't take more than 45 minutes to build and as long as you own a phillips head screwdriver and a hammer, this bedside table is still a great option.
If you want something dependable but don't want anything too flashy, the Homfa Nightstand is a great pick. It is sturdy but light, and has a drawer and a large open shelf for storage. This nightstand is also a great size, and offers lots of room for books and journals without taking up too much space. Although you do need your own screwdriver, this bedside table came with good and easy to follow instructions. It is also one of the most well-constructed nightstands we tested, while also being one of the lightest.
After assembling the Homfa Nightstand and placing it next to a bed, we found it to have a very professional appeal. Aesthetically, this bedside table is boxy and simple, with a clear focus on functionality.
The Bedshelfie is a great option if you like the idea of a bed shelf, but don't want unnecessary accessories. This shelf is simple and elegant and provides enough room for a few items of your choosing. It is easy to install and even has padding on the metal installation points to help prevent damage to your bed frame.
Although the Bedshelfie is significantly larger than the other bed shelf we tested, it is not nearly as stable. After the installation we noticed that it sags a little even without being weighted. Despite this drawback, this bed shelf still works well and holds up to lighter loads.
The Winsome Daniel Night Stand is simple, small, and does the job. This nightstand comes with good instructions, labeled hardware and even a tool to help you assemble it. This bedside table has three good sized drawers, allowing for plenty of private storage.
Although the Winsome Daniel Night Stand has several drawers, it is the only nightstand we tested that had drawers without drawer runners with ball bearings. This undoubtedly makes the assembly easier, but also makes the drawers more difficult to open and close.
We were surprised to see how good the Songmics Nightstand looked next to a bed. Although it is much smaller than the rest of the full-size nightstands, its wood finish and metal frame stand out elegantly. It is incredibly light and provides plenty of room for books, water, a lamp.
Unfortunately, it quickly came to our attention that the Songmics Nightstand is very cheaply made. While assembling this model, we discovered that one of the metal legs was actually welded incorrectly. This caused the nightstand to line up incorrectly once fully assembled and therefore caused an issue with its stability.
Why You Should Trust Us
When each of our testing team goes to bed, we like to have a place to put our books, our phone, our alarm, even a lamp. Each of us knows the importance of proper storage availability and respective aesthetics in a vital piece of home furnishing. Rather than piling our belongings in a heap next to the head of the bed or throwing down a cardboard box, we enjoy a purposeful piece of tasteful furniture to help tuck away our bedtime essentials. Head tester and furniture connoisseur Liv Mertens has a critical eye for decor, and a logical approach to function.
Some of us just want a nightstand for a book and a phone, while others want to be able to stow away every journal they have ever had and their humidifier on top. Our team has carefully taken each priority into account in order to give you a better picture of the products themselves and what to expect as the consumer. We diligently selected the top eight nightstands to compare against one another, focusing on size, aesthetic, quality of construction, ease of assembly, and special features.
Analysis and Test Results
In searching for the perfect nightstand, we found that priorities may vary depending on whether you need a place for a kindle or many books, how much space is available next to your bed, if you want drawers or prefer open shelves, if you need something light and moveable, or you just want something pretty. Our testing showed us that no one nightstand is superior in all metrics, but rather that each one has its own set of strengths.
Features
The first factor in choosing the best nightstand, is deciding what features are the most important for you. Each of the products we tested offers different features. Some have more drawers, while others have smartphone holders and USB ports. Our team assessed the features of each of the nightstand based on specific advantages and quality of the feature. We found that the Casual Home Night Owl has the best features as it offers a built-in USB port and well-built drawers.
The Bamboo Bedside Bed Shelf also has surprisingly great features considering how small it is. Not only does it have a built-in USB, but also has a designated cup holder and slots for easy cell phone storage.
Aesthetic
Coming in at a close second is aesthetic because it is how most everyone ends up selecting their furniture. If you don't like how it looks, you probably won't buy it. We used our intuition and understanding of interior design to identify the most attractive bedside tables. The top picks in this category were the Casual Home Night Owl and the Winsome Wood Henry Accent Table. Both of these nightstands have a more classic design and have the added benefit of making a simple space suddenly more refined.
Size
For size, our team looked at the height of each bedside table and the amount of storage it offered. Most of the nightstands are about the same height with just a couple outliers, such as the Bedshelfie and the Bamboo Bedside Bed Shelf, which present an incredibly simple solution to the problem of limited floor space, but offer no storage.
The rest of the nightstands are around the same height, however the Winsome Wood Henry Accent Table and the Homfa Nightstand have the best size to storage ratio. They both fit nicely next to the bed, coming in at about 25 inches and have plenty of storage without being too intrusive. They also both have one larger compartment and one smaller compartment offering more options for storage.
If you are looking for the smallest and lightest stand-alone bedside table, the Songmics Nightstand doesn't take up a lot of room, but still manages to offer a shelf and a drawer for storage.
Quality of Construction
The quality of each nightstand's construction is important to consider to best assess whether each product is even worth buying at all. We wanted to be sure that the products were worth their salt, and could stand the test of time through moving from one apartment to another, through various accidental spills and scuffs, and through any other unexpected catastrophe that might come to a nightstand. We found that the nightstands with the best construction and the most stability were the Prepac Sonoma Tall 2-Drawer Nightstand and the Homfa Nightstand. Both of these nightstands are built out of reliable materials and have robust designs.
Ease of Assembly
Although putting together bedside tables was no easy task, ease of assembly is far from the most important factor in selecting furniture. With this particular metric, our team primarily wanted to let you, as the consumer, know what you're in for.
We were pleasantly surprised at how easy the the Casual Home Night Owl is to assemble. It came in no more than three pieces not including the drawer knobs, and included a tool to help you install the hardware.
Most of the nightstands, however, came in many more than three pieces. While some came nicely labeled and separated, like the Winsome Daniel Night Stand, others did not come so neatly packed. The Prepac Sonoma Tall 2-Drawer Nightstand was delivered with no labels on any of the pieces and all the hardware haphazardly in a single plastic bag.
Conclusion
Ultimately, each nightstand we tested does its job. They provide an easily accessible place for your nighttime necessities. Depending on what you like to keep close at hand in the evening or the wee hours of the AM, one nightstand may be a better option than another. We performed a comprehensive review so that you can make the best choice for your sleeping style.
— Liv Mertens