Seeing the bedroom in our new house, it was immediately clear where the bed would go. The room is symmetrical, and we'd be getting eye twitches if the bed wasn't contributing to this symmetry. It had only one catch - the headboard wall would not be wide enough to support a king-size bed and regular-sized nightstands.
The design
Not willing to compromise on bed size (I'm a starfish sleeper), I spent good two weeks looking for a nightstand. At under 13 inches wide, the pickings were pretty slim, so I quickly decided this would be my first woodworking project. A couple of constraints immediately stood out:
- Basic tools and materials only - I was still deciding on whether to get a table saw at that point.
- Storage - We both usually read a couple of books at a time, and a lot of nightstands are practically just a plank.
- "Fenced" top - If I had a penny for each time I accidentally swiped my phone off the nightstand at night, I'd have a good couple of bucks
After a handful of iterations, the design was set — Made of white oak plywood, 12 inches wide, with hairpin legs. There's a fenced surface at the top for a phone, light, and one book. Underneath that is one open shelf for more books and one closed drawer at the bottom for everything else.
The build
I planned my cuts beforehand just to know how much plywood to get. Most of the pieces for both nightstand fit into a half sheet (I got mine at Home Depot), so after cutting out sides from a second one, I still had a nice big piece left over.
After cutting a groove for a 1/8” back panel and applying edge band on all the exposed edges, I used basic pocket hole joinery for assembling the carcass. The drawers I put together using rabbet joints and I finished everything with a coat of poly. The only exception is the drawer front, for which I used a combination primer/paint spray and matte spray varnish.
Bill of Materials
I figured it’d be helpful to get a quick list of materials — if not for recreating this build then at least for some quick inspiration. Altogether, it adds up to about $340 in material, most expensive item being the - outrageously expensive these days - plywood.
- 2x 3/4” White oak plywood project panel — $82.42 from Home Depot
- 1x 1/8” Utility panel for drawer floor and backing — $16.28 from Home Depot
- 1x 7/8” White oak edge banding — $40 from Amazon
- 2x Set of two 14” drawer rails — $18 from Amazon
- 2x Set of 4 6” Hairpin Legs - Jet Black Satin — $26 from diyhairpinlegs
- 1x Titebond wood glue — $22 from Amazon
- 1x Kreg 1-1/4” pocket screws — $12 from Amazon
The finished product
We've been using these for the last year or so, and we're super happy overall. If I were to make a new version, I'd probably do a few things differently:
- Incorporate a wireless phone charger. Having to fish for the cable is still a chore.
- Replace the hairpin legs. They give the build a sense of lightness, but wooden legs can probably achieve the same and look less out of place.
- Get higher quality drawer hardware. It still requires a bit of force to open the drawer despite tuning the slides.
Hope you enjoyed the write-up and thanks for following along!