Just Because It’s Cute Doesn’t Mean It Works: Learning Proportion by Trial and Error

I bought this super cute end table on Craigslist over the summer and knew it would look absolutely adorable painted white.

 

In my opinion, it does look super cute white. My intention was to use it for a nightstand, which I currently do:

Problem? It’s WAYYYY to short for my mattress. Actually, it's about 10 inches shorter than the mattress. I should’ve know that both this table and the other table I had would be way too short to be good nightstands. Fail.

Lesson learned. I really need to pay better attention to the proportion of the items I buy. This is tough, and something I’ve found is really instinctual. It’s really difficult to understand how items will interact with each other when you’re viewing them individually. But a nightstand is pretty obvious – it should be about as tall as the bed.

Now I’m on the hunt for two taller nightstands. I have a few ideas, but I’m not quite sure what I’m looking for exactly. I’m thinking about putting 40 inch bookshelves next to each bed with lamps on both bookshelves (don’t really want to mess with sconces in a rental unit). Has anyone seen any good examples of this when the bookshelves aren’t built in to encompass the whole wall? Another alternative is finding smallish dressers or end tables with drawers…this might hold a little more weight in the large room and look more reasonable next to the fairly big headboard. Thoughts anyone?