Bedroom · Buying Guide
A bedside table is a small purchase that quietly decides whether a bedroom works. Somewhere for a lamp, a glass of water and a phone charger is the difference between a room you live in and a room you sleep in — and in a box room or a hall bedroom, the wrong one blocks the door or eats the only walkway. These are the ones worth shortlisting under £100, chosen for footprint as much as looks: slim designs, floating designs, and a few that squeeze real storage into very little floor.
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At a glance — our picks
Best budget
From
The cheapest thing here that still looks deliberate rather than temporary. A slim metal frame reads as light in a small room — and at £24.50 it's genuinely disposable at the end of a tenancy, which for a first year in halls is a fair argument.
Best for very tight gaps
Reynolds Slim Bedside TableFrom
Built narrow on purpose, for the gap between the bed and the wall that everything else is 5cm too wide for. If you have measured and despaired, start here.
Best space-saver
Lynton 1 Drawer Floating Bedside TableFrom
Wall-mounted, so it takes up no floor whatsoever and you can set the height to match your mattress exactly. The catch is fixings — brilliant in your own room, usually not allowed in halls, so check the tenancy first.
Best for storage
Hayes 3 Drawer Bedside TableFrom
Three drawers in the same footprint the others use for one — the most useful pick here if the room has no chest of drawers and you need somewhere for socks as well as chargers.
Best colour
Birlea Bedside Cabinet Olive Green Oak Highgate 2 Drawer BedsideFrom
Olive green over an oak effect, and a welcome break from the sea of white melamine at this price. Two drawers, so it earns its place as well as looking like it was chosen rather than settled for.
Best design pick
Drue Sculpted Bedside TableFrom
The one on this list that looks considerably more expensive than it is. If the rest of the room is plain — and in rented accommodation it usually is — this is a cheap way to make it feel intentional.
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How we picked
Measure the gap between the bed and the wall before anything else — that number, not the price, rules most options out. Remember a drawer needs clearance in front of it to open, so a unit that technically fits may still be unusable. Floating and wall-mounted designs take up no floor at all and make a small room read as bigger, but they need fixings, which most student tenancies prohibit — check before you buy. Open-shelf designs feel lighter than closed cabinets in a tight space; drawers hide the clutter. Height matters more than people expect: roughly level with the top of the mattress is what you want. Prices and stock are checked live, so anything that sells out or rises above £100 drops off automatically.
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Compare all bedside tablesNew to this? Read our plain-English guide, The Student Bedroom Checklist.