Small Bedroom Decorating Ideas: Desks Doing Double Duty as Nightstands

Most conventional advice recommends keeping work outside of the bedroom to boost calm and serenity within a sleeping space. But apparently most conventional advice givers have never had to make it all work with just 550 square feet. The bedroom-plus-office combo has always been a solid solution for tight quarters, and here’s one more tip to keep a dual duty bedroom comfortable.

With space at a minimum, corners have to be cut — four of them to be exact. Instead of trying to fit a nightstand and desk together in one room, take one table completely out of the equation and set up a small sized desk bedside instead.

Cozy up a desk next to the bed, leaving some room at one end for bedside essentials like a lamp, an alarm clock, and somewhere to station a smartphone. With a chair or stool that tucks under the desk, the single table can pull double duty as both a nightstand and an occasional desk. Or forgo the chair entirely, like photo #3 above from Apartment Therapy’s Big Book of Small Cool Spaces, where the bed backs right up to a shelf that serves as a nightstand and workspace.

1. Kate Collins Interiors
2. Elizabeth & Brent’s Rented Luxury, Apartment Therapy House Tour
3. Apartment Therapy’s Big Book of Small Cool Spaces
4. Lonny Magazine
5. Dayka Robinson Design, as featured on West Elm
6. Bryn Alexandra Interiors
7. Phoebe Howard
8. Trump Tower bedroom, via Houzz
9. Real Simple
10. West Elm

(Images: As linked above)

*Re-edited from a post originally published 8.1.2013 – AB