I don’t know about you, but once I took down all the Christmas decor…our home is feeling SAD.

Now I want to spruce her all up.

Details: sconce // nightstand {rotated sideways to fit in our small bedroom} // bed frame // basket // bowl // sheets // duvet cover {major sale}

Luckily, Melissa, our interior designer, agreed to join Cedar & Rush again for 2021! We were both wrapping up year end projects so our Designer Expert Q&A series came to a hault. But she’s back baby and I’m here for it.

What Is The Designer Expert Q|A Series?

In case you’re new to these parts, Chicago interior design expert, Melissa Mahoney, is simplifying decorating for us common folk {ahem – me!}.

I have to commend Melissa for her SPECIFICS and paint by number approach. No high level advice that leaves you with more questions and confusion. Her tips are well thought through so we can actually do them ourselves.

And best of all, this is advice you’d normally have to pay for… and we get it FOR FREE. 

Below you’ll find past posts and topics in case you are tackling these specific areas in your home.

Past Articles With Melissa

1. HOW TO STYLE BOOKS ON BOOKSHELVES
2. HOW TO STYLE OBJECTS ON BOOKSHELVES
3. HOW TO STYLE YOUR COFFEE TABLE
4. 3 FRESH FRONT DOOR TIPS THAT INCREASE CURB APPEAL
5. HOW TO MAKE AN INTERIOR DESIGN WORTHY MOOD BOARD

How To Style Your Nightstand

As for today, Melissa is talking ALL things nightstands.

And if you want to know the next topic, you can find it at the bottom of this post. It’s a good one, especially if you like organization.

All righty Melissa…the floor is yours.

Scale For Nightstands

1. In my opinion, you should max out your nightstand size in your space. Go with three drawer dressers on each side of the bed if you have the space! Dressers can be a bit taller than your mattress height, but not higher than halfway up your pillows. Now if you don’t have this type of nightstand and plan on keeping the ones you have, this is by no means a requirement. Just a nice to have if space allows. The goal is simply to maximize your use of space to avoid dead corners and to also amplify storage where beneficial in nightstands.
2. If you are tight on space, go with a small table with character that still reaches the height of your mattress and has a shelf, drawer, or both for extra storage. You’ll find a slew of recommended nightstands below that are great and vary significantly in size.
3. I always pull beds from the side walls, even if only 15” of space on one side. This eases making beds, and allows for a small, sometimes mismatched, table on the wall side. If you belong to my “House To Home 101” Group, I go into great detail about this and even share an exception to thee rule!

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Function Over Form

1. Must haves are a table lamp or wall-hung sconce, a clock, and a noise machine in my house 👌🏻
2. Then, keep making your nightstands work for you. Gather all of the things you are desperate for as you go to bed and as you wake up – ie: charger(s), chapstick, eye glasses, reading books, iPad, phone, a water glass, etc.
3. Once you have all of the things you need to feel your best for bed, grab support items to ground them – ie: bowl or small tray for eye glases, chapstick… AND a coaster for your water glass… AND a basket on a shelf for reading books & an iPad, or a stack of decorative books to ground your reading books.
4. Chargers are an eyesore. So the more you can plug in behind the bed and have as a permanent fixture into a nightstand drawer or fed low key onto the back-side of your nightstand, the better. Avoid exposed cords, even if it means using an extension cord and some zip ties to keep things in order 👌🏻 Pro Tip: Buy extra chargers for your guest bedroom to do the same for your overnight guests. 

Add a Bit of Form

1. A fresh flower in a bud vase.
2. A piece of art or photo hanging low. Tip: Offset on your lamp/sconce.
3. Additional stack of books or magazines, depending on surface space. 

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Melissa, thank you SO much for breaking this down!

If you have more questions about nightstands and/or styling them, DM Melissa on Instagram. She is SO nice, LOVES to hear from you and doesn’t bite.

As for the next topic? EVERYTHING BASKETS.

For example…how to determine the size, how many, what material, where to put ’em, her favorite places to buy them and all that jazz.

Melissa already sent me me her tips. Now it’s my turn to actually apply them in my own home. That way we don’t leave one stone unturned! So keep your eyes peeled!

P.S. How we fit a king sized bed in a small bedroom and 9 steps to make your bed more comfortable.