How to Choose a Table Lamp for a Bedside Table

A bedside lamp is used in the dark, half asleep, by someone lying down. That is a very specific set of conditions and it is not how lamps are photographed for catalogues.

Get the height right

This is the whole game. The bottom of the shade should sit at roughly your eye level when you are sitting up in bed. For most people and most beds that means a lamp around 60 to 70 cm tall on a standard nightstand.

Too tall and you look straight at the bulb, which is uncomfortable and defeats the point. Too short and the light pools on the table instead of reaching your book.

Measure from the top of your nightstand, not the floor, because nightstand heights vary enormously.

The switch is the most important feature

You will operate this lamp in the dark, reaching sideways, without your glasses on. A switch on the cord halfway to the socket is genuinely annoying every single night.

Look for a switch on the base, a touch control, or a pull chain. Touch dimming is the nicest of the three because it lets you drop the light low without getting up.

Rechargeable cordless lamps sidestep the problem entirely and can be carried around the house, which is more useful than it sounds.

Shade material changes everything

Opaque or lined shades push light up and down in two cones. Good for reading, because the light lands where you point it, and it keeps glare out of your partner's eyes.

Translucent fabric or paper shades glow all over and light the whole room softly. Prettier, less useful for reading.

If you read in bed, pick the first. If the lamp is mostly for atmosphere, pick the second.

Brightness and warmth

Around 400 to 800 lumens suits a bedside lamp. Bright enough to read by, not so bright that it wakes you up properly at 2am.

Warm white, 2700K, for a bedroom. Cool light in a bedroom fights the thing you are there to do. If you can get dimmable, get dimmable, because the light you want for reading and the light you want for winding down are not the same.

Footprint

Measure your nightstand before ordering. A lamp base wider than about a third of the surface leaves nowhere for a book, a glass of water and a phone, which are the three things a nightstand actually exists for.

Where space is tight, a wall mounted or clip on light frees the whole surface.

If there are two of you

Matching lamps look tidy but separate switches matter more than matching. One person reading while the other sleeps is the normal case, and a directional shade plus an individual switch handles it.

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