Why Bedside Tables Are Almost Always Too Small
Reflections on Design
On the small decisions that shape how things age.
This series reflects on everyday design — the objects, spaces, and decisions we live with quietly. Not the moments of failure or spectacle, but the slow erosion of care: where good intentions are diluted by convenience, and thoughtfulness thins over time. Nothing here is broken. Nothing demands attention. And yet, something is slowly lost. Each piece is an attempt to notice what we’ve stopped noticing — and to ask whether things might be made, kept, and lived with a little more deliberately.
At Philosophy Studio, this way of noticing shapes how we design, make, and choose what belongs in the everyday.
Things That Should Be Easier
Reflections on everyday objects and rituals that modern design has quietly made more complicated than they need to be.
There’s a strange moment most nights, just before sleep, when you realise your bedside table is not on your side.
Your book is half on, half off. Your phone is stacked on something else. Your glass of water is dangerously close to becoming a story you’ll tell in the morning.
And you think: surely this could have been designed better.
A modest request
A bedside table doesn’t have a complicated job.
It needs to hold a book.
A phone.
A glass of water.
Maybe a lamp.
Occasionally a pair of glasses, a notebook, or whatever you promised yourself you’d read “before bed.”
That’s it.
And yet, somehow, bedside tables have become remarkably bad at this.
The great shrinking problem
Spend a bit of time looking at bedside tables today and you’ll notice something odd:
they’re getting smaller.
Not intentionally small.
Not thoughtfully compact.
Just… optimistic.
They assume:
- you only read slim books
- you don’t drink water at night
- your phone lives somewhere else
- and clutter is a moral failing
Many look beautiful. Very beautiful. But by the time you place a book and a lamp on them, the surface is full — and everyone is uncomfortable.
What small gets wrong (and when it gets it right)
Now, to be clear: small isn’t the enemy.
A petite bedside table can be wonderful if it’s designed with intention. If it understands restraint. If it knows exactly what it’s for.
The problem is when small becomes accidental — when a bedside table looks good in a photo but hasn’t met a real bedtime routine.
Because bedtime isn’t styled.
It’s repetitive.
A little messy.
And very human.
Design forgot the ritual
Much like reading chairs, bedside tables seem to have been designed around appearance rather than behaviour.
But the bedside table is a ritual object.
It’s the last place you visit before sleep and the first place you reach for in the morning. It holds what you don’t want to forget. It supports the quiet moments no one sees.
That deserves more respect than a surface the size of a paperback.
A quiet confession
I should probably admit something here.
The bedside table we offer
The Novella — is on the petite side too.
But it’s small on purpose.
It doesn’t try to do everything. It doesn’t pretend you don’t own things. It’s designed for the essentials — thoughtfully, calmly, and without pretending that minimalism means inconvenience.
There’s a difference between considered restraint and not enough space.
One supports a ritual.
The other interrupts it.
Why this matters more than it seems
When everyday furniture doesn’t quite work, it quietly changes how we live.
You stack things.
You compromise.
You adapt your habits around objects that should have adapted to you.
And over time, that becomes normal.
But it shouldn’t be.
Because good design doesn’t ask you to be tidier, simpler, or less human.
It meets you where you are — usually half-awake, holding a book, trying not to knock over a glass of water.
Things that should be easier
A bedside table shouldn’t be something you have to think about.
It should just be there.
Holding what you need.
Doing its job.
Staying out of the way.
And if it’s small, it should at least be honest about it.
Where this series is going
If this feels familiar, that’s the point.
Things That Should Be Easier isn’t about perfection. It’s about noticing the small frictions we’ve learned to live with — and questioning why we had to.
Next up, we might talk about:
- lighting that’s either blinding or useless
- desks that look productive but feel miserable
- or why everything suddenly needs an app
One thing at a time.