In a small bedroom the storage worth having is under the bed, up the wall and behind the door, because floor is what the room is short of. Every 10 cm of clearance under a UK double hides about 256 litres. A pair of average bedside tables takes 0.28 m² of floor; a wall-mounted pair takes none.
Two of the pages Google shows for small bedroom storage ideas list fifteen ideas each. We sell bedside tables, which means we spend a lot of time measuring the strip between a bed and a wall, so this guide does it differently: fewer ideas, each one with the floor it costs and what it gives back. The figures come from three places: the published sizes of 262 floor-standing bedside tables we recorded for our height study, the dimensions of the pieces we sell, and plain arithmetic you can check with a tape measure.
Floor is the expensive part
Take a small bedroom of 210 × 240 cm. That is 5.04 m² of floor, which is less than the 6.51 m² that England's licensing rules for shared houses require for a bedroom used by one person over ten. Those rules only bind licensed HMOs, but they show how tight the room is before anything goes in it.
| What stands on the floor | Floor it takes | Share of a 210 × 240 cm room |
|---|---|---|
| A UK single bed, 90 × 190 cm | 1.71 m² | 34 % |
| A UK double bed, 135 × 190 cm | 2.57 m² | 51 % |
| An average bedside table, 40 × 35 cm (the median of the 262) | 0.14 m² | 2.8 % |
| A pair of them | 0.28 m² | 5.6 % |
| A 20 cm bedside table, 20 × 20 cm | 0.04 m² | 0.8 % |
| A wall-mounted bedside table | None | 0 % |
| A chest of drawers 80 cm wide and 40 cm deep | 0.32 m² | 6.3 % |
Furniture also costs floor in front of it. A drawer only opens fully if there is roughly as much clear space in front of it as the drawer is deep, so a chest 40 cm deep really needs about 75 to 80 cm of floor from the wall outwards. That is why the ideas below start with places where nothing stands on the floor at all.
Under the bed: a large store that costs no floor
The space under a bed is a large volume that costs no floor. How much it holds depends on two things: the size of the bed and the clearance between the floor and the underside of the frame.
| Bed size | Gross space for every 10 cm of clearance |
|---|---|
| Single, 90 × 190 cm | 171 litres |
| Small double, 120 × 190 cm | 228 litres |
| Double, 135 × 190 cm | about 256 litres |
| King, 150 × 200 cm | 300 litres |
That is gross space: legs, a centre rail and the walls of the boxes all take their share. Even so, a double with 20 cm of clearance has about 510 litres under it: more than three chests of 80 × 40 × 50 cm.
Measure the clearance at the lowest point of the frame, usually the side rail, not under the slats. Then pick the box to the clearance, not the other way round: boxes on castors with a lid slide out sideways, which matters when a bedside table or the wall blocks the head end. If you are buying the bed itself, a frame with drawers or a lift-up base puts the storage inside the bed and saves you buying boxes at all.
One trade-off nobody mentions. Bed risers add clearance, but they lift the mattress by the same amount, and a bedside table works best when its top is within about 5 cm of the top of the mattress. Raise the bed by 10 cm and the table needs to be about 10 cm taller, or fixed higher on the wall. The bedside table height guide explains how to measure it.
Beside the bed: drawers, not shelves
Bedside tables tend to be wide. Of the 262 we recorded, 111 are 45 cm wide or more, and only 7 are as narrow as 20 cm. The median takes 1,400 cm² of floor; a 20 cm table takes 400 cm², under a third of that.
In a small room we would choose drawers over open shelves every time. A shelf holds the same things, but everything on it is on show, and a small room looks cluttered long before it is full. Our 20 cm table with two drawers is 20 cm wide, 20 cm deep and 40 cm tall: the drawers take the chargers, the hand cream and the glasses case, and the top keeps a lamp or a glass. What fits on top at each width is measured in what actually fits on a bedside table. If you have 25 to 35 cm, the narrow bedside tables give you a wider drawer and a top that takes both. And if the gap is a full 45 cm, our three-drawer table fits three drawers into it by going up to 58 cm rather than out.
Before you buy, put the gap, the depth you can spare and the height of your mattress into the size checker. It checks every piece we sell against your three numbers.
Up the wall
A wall-mounted bedside table takes the same storage off the floor completely. It also solves the three things that make a floor-standing table sit away from the wall in a small room: a skirting board, a plug socket and the valve of a radiator. You fix it at the height of your mattress, so the bed height stops mattering too.
Our 30 cm wall-mounted table with a drawer is 30 cm wide and 25 cm deep, and its body is only 15 cm tall, so it reads as a ledge rather than a cabinet. The full range is in floating and wall-mounted bedside tables. You need to drill, and the right fixing depends on your wall: plasterboard, brick and dot-and-dab each need something different.
Above the bed, a shelf over the headboard holds books and the things you want within reach. Keep it to light things, since it sits above your head. The space above the door is the other forgotten wall: a shelf there is the right place for boxes you open twice a year. And if the room has a chimney breast, the alcoves on either side are made for shelves or a short hanging rail.
Renting and cannot drill? Our guide to bedside table alternatives covers the options that need no fixings, with the width each one takes.
Go tall, not wide
A chest 80 cm wide, 40 cm deep and 50 cm tall holds 160 litres and takes 0.32 m² of floor. A chest 40 cm wide, 40 cm deep and 100 cm tall holds the same 160 litres on half the floor. In a small bedroom, choose the tall one, and choose drawers you can open without moving the bed. Fix a tall chest to the wall with an anti-tip strap; in a child's room, treat that as part of the job, not an extra.
The same rule works for clothes. A tall, narrow wardrobe beats a wide low one, and out-of-season clothes belong under the bed, not in the wardrobe. With no room for a wardrobe at all, a rail for what you wear each week plus under-bed boxes for the rest does the job of one.
Behind the door and at the foot of the bed
The back of the bedroom door is free storage. Hooks or an over-door organiser take dressing gowns, bags and scarves, as long as the door still closes and still opens fully against whatever is behind it.
The foot of the bed is the other strip people forget. In a 240 cm room, a 190 cm bed leaves 50 cm at the foot: enough for a low chest or a storage bench, which doubles as somewhere to sit while you put your shoes on. Our box room guide works through that layout with the measurements.
The order to do it in
- Measure the clearance under the bed and fill it first. It is a large volume and costs no floor.
- Use the walls: a wall-mounted bedside table, a shelf over the headboard, a shelf over the door.
- Use the back of the door.
- Beside the bed, choose drawers sized to the gap you actually have, not to the average table: our bedside table ideas are sorted by that gap.
- Only then buy anything else that stands on the floor, and make it tall rather than wide.
Questions
How do you maximise storage in a small bedroom?
Start with the places that cost no floor: under the bed, the walls and the back of the door. Under a UK double, every 10 cm of clearance is about 256 litres. Then choose furniture that is tall rather than wide, and drawers rather than open shelves.
What furniture works best in a small bedroom?
A bed with storage inside it, a wall-mounted or narrow bedside table, and tall rather than wide chests. A 20 cm bedside table takes 400 cm² of floor, under a third of the 1,400 cm² that the median table in our sample of 262 takes.
How can I create hidden storage in a small room?
Use lidded boxes or drawers under the bed, a bed with a lift-up base, and bedside tables with drawers instead of open shelves. Things behind a drawer front or under a bed do not add to the visual clutter that makes a small room feel smaller.
Where can I store clothes in a small bedroom without a wardrobe?
Hang what you wear each week on a rail, keep out-of-season clothes in boxes under the bed, and use the back of the door for gowns and bags. A tall chest of drawers holds folded clothes on less floor than a wide one.
How much space does a bedside table take?
The median of the 262 floor-standing bedside tables we recorded is 40 cm wide and 35 cm deep, which is 0.14 m² of floor. The narrowest are 20 cm wide and 20 cm deep. A wall-mounted bedside table takes no floor at all.
Is under-bed storage worth it?
In a small bedroom, yes. It is a large volume that costs no floor: 171 litres for every 10 cm of clearance under a single bed, and about 256 litres under a double. Measure the clearance at the lowest point of the frame before you buy boxes.
Do bed risers affect the height of a bedside table?
Yes, by exactly the height of the risers. A bedside table works best with its top within about 5 cm of the top of the mattress, so raising the bed by 10 cm means a table about 10 cm taller, or a wall-mounted one fixed higher.
Can you put shelves above a bed?
Yes, for light things such as books, a lamp you can reach or a plant. Keep anything heavy elsewhere, since the shelf sits above your head, and use fixings that suit your wall: plasterboard, brick and dot-and-dab each need different ones.