My previous nightstand was six cardboard banker boxes with a towel draped over the top. Height-wise it was nearly perfect next to the bed, and it did what it needed to, providing room for my alarm clock, phone and tablet.
It was, as you might suspect, not overly stylish, and the tops of the boxes got a bit lumpy over the years. Yes, years. I’m not sure why, but I kept this setup far longer than would seem reasonable for something that was intended to be makeshift and temporary.
No more! As part of my Big De-Clutter, I am starting to replace boxes-posing-as-furniture with actual furniture. I started with the nightstand because, well, it’s the only boxes-posing-as-furniture that I actually have. But I’m still replacing other real furniture for various reasons, as I’ll cover in a future post (hint: some of it has to do with what I like to call “granny styling.”)
I picked a suitable replacement from IKEA, a handsome baby Malm that would fit in perfectly next to the big brother Malm already there and serving as my new, improved clothes dresser. But somehow I had measured something wrong (math is hard) and the baby Malm is maybe too much of a baby. It sits significantly lower than the bed (admittedly, we have a massive uber-Queen size that is something like three meters tall. You have to take a running leap to get into bed at night). It’s not unmanageable, but in the end it isn’t what I wanted. I was sad, briefly. Then the cogs in my brain started turning, as they do from time to time.
The tiny Malm could replace the kind-of ugly end table in the living room, as its diminutive stature would not be an issue next to the couch. Voila, nightstand re-purposed, buyer’s regret vanquished (mostly)!. I then began looking for other nightstands that were actually height-compatible with the bed and may have found one at one of the 1,000 furniture stores on United Boulevard in Coquitlam. We will be checking it out on Saturday.
I’m also turfing my L-shaped computer desk because the L-shape ended up annoying me and the desk is too shallow, and the fake woodgrain looks a tad tacky. But that will also be another post.
For now, Furniture Quest 2019, part of the Big De-Clutter and general life improvement stuff, is well underway.
