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The height of a bedside table is set by the mattress, not by the bed. Two beds of the same nominal size can put their mattress tops four inches apart depending on the base, and a divan set inside a frame sits differently again from a slatted base. So the first measurement is one only you can take: floor to the top of the made-up mattress, in the bed you will actually be sleeping in.
Aim for the table top to land level with the mattress top or a little below it. A table that stands proud of the mattress is what you knock your arm on getting out of bed. A table three inches too low means reaching down for a glass in the dark. The same logic runs through the rest of the piece, which is why a bedside table is a small commission with a surprising number of real decisions in it.
Working from the pattern up
Most bedside tables begin life as a lamp table pattern taken to a different height. The standard lamp table heights we build sit between twenty inches (51cm) and twenty-six inches (66cm), which covers a good proportion of beds as they come. The Rowton caddy-top side table stands at thirty-three inches (84cm), which is high for most bedsides but right beside a tall bed.
The patterns that adapt best are the ones with a usable top and something underneath: the farmhouse lamp table with a single drawer, the canted corner or half round table with one drawer, the lamp table with a potboard beneath, and the low boy with its run of drawers where a proper chest is wanted. Bedside chests and cabinets are made as bedroom pieces in their own right, with or without cross banding, and the Gothic range covers bedside cabinets with the same pointed-arch tracery as its beds and wardrobes.
One drawer, two, or none
A single drawer is the default and it is usually the right answer. It takes the things you want hidden and it keeps the piece light in the room, which matters when the piece is standing next to something as large as a bed.
Two drawers, or a small chest, is the answer when the bedside table is doing the work of a chest of drawers as well, which is common in a room where there is no space for both. The cost is visual weight, and a heavy bedside chest either side of a bed can crowd it. A potboard or open shelf below is the third option and the best one for books, which are heavy, ugly in a drawer and constantly in use.
The honest test is to look at what currently sits on and around your bedside table. Whatever is stacked on the floor beside it is the thing the new piece needs to swallow.
Width, depth and the walk past the bed
The width is constrained by the gap between the bed and the wall or the window. Measure it before choosing a pattern rather than after. A table that fills the gap looks settled; one that leaves four inches of dead wall on either side looks like it wandered in from another room.
Depth is limited by the walk past the bed. A shallower table is almost always better in a tight room, and the half round pattern, with its flat edge to the wall, is worth considering where the route past is narrow. If the piece is standing in front of a radiator or a skirting, remember that its back has to clear both.
Matching the bed, or matching the room
The instinct is to match the bed, and it is usually right where the bed is a strong piece: a four poster, a half tester, or a Gothic bed with tracery. In that case the bedside tables should be drawn in the same language, in the same timber, finished at the same time in the same batch so the colour is genuinely one colour rather than two near misses.
Where the bed is quiet, or where it is an inherited piece you would rather not compete with, matching the room is the better instruction. A bedside table in the timber and finish of the wardrobe and chest, standing beside a plain bed, reads as a bedroom that was thought about. Colour matching to a piece you already own is quoted on application, because the cost is polishing time, and it needs something physical to work from: the piece itself, a drawer, a door or an offcut.
Pairs, and the two sides of a bed
Bedside tables are usually commissioned in pairs, and it is worth saying which side each one goes and what stands beside it. One side may have a radiator under the window, the other a door that swings in. Pairs made together also come out of the same boards and through the finishing shop together, which is the only reliable way to get two pieces that read as one.
If only one of the pair is being made now, say so at the enquiry, because the drawings are kept and a matching piece can be made later from the same specification.
Timber and finish on a small piece
A small piece shows its timber more than a large one, since there is less of it and it is seen close up under a lamp every evening. Cherry darkens quickly in the first year or two, which matters if the bedside tables are joining an older cherry bed. Oak is the most forgiving alongside almost anything. Character oak, pippy oak and clean knot-free timber are all available on application, though pippy is a top timber only.
Take your mattress height, the gap either side of the bed and a photograph of the bed itself, and ask for samples to look at in the bedroom rather than downstairs. Bedroom light is not sitting-room light, and a bedside table is looked at almost entirely by lamplight.