Unique Bedroom Nightstand Ideas

When choosing furniture for a bedroom, it's tempting to buy a matching furniture set where you get everything together - a headboard, nightstands, chest of drawers, and mirror. It's a quick and easy way to furnish an entire room and you can often get furniture sets for a super low price. But please...DON'T DO IT! Have you ever oohh'ed and aahh'ed over a beautiful room where every piece of furniture matched? I highly doubt it.  Most well-decorated rooms feel as though the pieces have been collected over time rather than purchased in a single visit to Furniture Fair. If you already have a matching set of bedroom furniture, no fear - most of us have committed this decorating sin at some point - but now's the time to start breaking up your matching set and bringing some personality to your space. A good start to having this "collected" feel would be to switch out one or both of your nightstands to something unique and "non-matchy". You could buy a typical nightstand in a different finish or material than the rest of your bedroom furniture (search Craigslist if you don't want to spend a lot of money!) or you could try out one of these unique ideas: 

*Use a vintage step ladder with wide rungs that you can stack a lamp, clock, and a few bedside books on:

{Martha Stewart}

Antique stores, flea markets, or your grandparents' basement are great places to look for a vintage step ladder but if none of those pan out for you, searching on ebay and Etsy will bring up lots of great options such as this pretty little lady: 

{Etsy: Timeless N Chic}

*Another idea is to make a nightstand out of stacked vintage suitcases:

{House Beautiful}

{A Beach Cottage}

You can look for vintage suitcases at the same places as you would for the ladder, but if all else fails, there are several stores that have reproductions such as Pottery Barn, which sells these pretty Woven Suitcases:

*Another option for creating a night stand is to place a large serving tray or suitcase on a luggage rack:

{The Old Painted Cottage}

There are lots of sources for great luggage racks - one that I've seen in person and love is Ballard Designs' Gaspar Luggage Rack

*A unique nightstand can also be created with a folding tray table:

{Lily Z. Design}

{Horchow}

The tray table in the image above is a gorgeous option - it is Horchow's White Fretwork Tray Table:

*A vintage file cabinet with some character (not a brand new one from Office Max :-)) can make a very cool nightstand and provide ample storage space:

{Norske Interior}

*My favorite idea of the bunch is to use a desk instead of a nightstand and get two uses out of one piece of furniture:

{D Home}

{AHL Christmas Showhouse via Design Indulgence}

{Gary Riggs Home}

{Lonny}

Small desks can be found at many stores and in catalogs, including Ballard Designs, which has several nicely sized desks such as this Moreland Desk:

*Yet another option is to use some type of rolling cart such as a bar cart (see this recent post on bar carts for some great options) or IKEA's RASKOG Kitchen Cart:

{The Freelancer's Fashion Blog}

*A very simple bedside solution is to stack a few nightstand essentials on a pretty chair next to your bed:

{Jute Home}

*Finally, a chest of drawers can be used as a nightstand, which is a particularly good idea when space is tight!

{Phoebe Howard}

{Velvet & Linen}

So, how many of you besides me are guilty of the matching bedroom set? The first set of furniture we bought after getting married was an ugly 6-piece bedroom set for $699. It did the job, getting us through our first several years of marriage when money was tight but our bedroom did look awful and I'm glad to have been able to replace the pieces over time as the budget has allowed. Hope you all have a great day - are you done with all of your holiday shopping or still running around like crazy (like me!) getting all of those last minute gifts?