It took us three years of being married and living together for us both to finally have nightstands. We waited that long because it wasn’t high on our list of furniture priorities, and we also wanted to take our time finding the right styles for the both of us.
Now that we both have nightstands, we took some time during quarantine to style them. Below we talk about how we styled our nightstands and included some tips on how you can style yours.
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It’s ok to break the rules.
The thing we love about home design and decor is that you become the designer and therefore, you get to choose what design and decor rules to break. For us, we decided to break the matching nightstands rule. We actually think it looks better when the nightstands are different, but still complement each other. Begad’s nightstand is round and white — and mine’s a rectangular wood nightstand. Both are from West Elm and we love that they come with drawers (so you are able to hide things that you don’t necessarily have the room for or don’t want to showcase).
Stick to a color scheme.
We mentioned this before in our shelf styling post, but sticking to a color scheme makes a huge difference, guys! It makes everything look cohesive and solidifies the theme/style you’re going for. Pick a few colors that go well together and start there. We picked warm neutrals for our nightstands.
Showcase objects that you use on a regular basis/are aesthetically pleasing.
We used items that fall into the following categories:
- scented items — diffusers/candles (we love our Vitruvi diffuser, click the link to get $15 off your first purchase.)
- books
- regularly used personal items — jewelry, cologne/perfume, glasses
- art work (the Arabic calligraphy horse print was gifted to us from our super talented artist friend Ahmad. You can contact him for custom art on his Instagram: @primartsdc
- plants/floral
Layer pieces.
We love to layer items when styling. It’s such an easy and effortless design technique and yet, it looks so good when done right. We layered both our nightstands by using books. On Begad’s we used a vintage book on architecture as the base and placed a candle and cologne on top. On mine, I used two coffee table books (At Home In Joshua Tree and Essential Well Being) as the base and then placed a jewelry bowl, round vase and Vitruvi essential oils on top. You don’t have to use books to layer. You can use things like magazines, boxes or vintage items.
Mix objects with different heights.
When you decide on what items you want to put on your nightstand, arrange them by varying heights. You can create interest and balance by changing the heights. Instead of placing two objects right next to each other with the same height, try using one tall item and one short item right next to it.
We found this graphic from Magnolia to be very helpful in illustrating this concept. It’s meant for styling a mantel, but you can use this to basically style any area of your home — nightstands, bookshelves, floating shelves, etc.
At the end of the day, you want your nightstand to be functional and clean. If there are too many items on there, it can get overwhelming and that’s the last feeling you want to have when going to bed or waking up first thing in the morning.
Overall, you should have fun styling your nightstand. Make it reflective of you and your style. 🌚
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