What colour bedside tables go with a grey bed?

Warm wood is the safest answer for a grey bed: chestnut, walnut or a light mango finish gives a grey frame the warmth it lacks. White is a clean contrast on a pale grey bed, black suits a charcoal one, and grey on grey only works when the table brings texture, such as a fluted front or a weathered grey wash. Match the two tables to each other, not to the bed.

We sell 129 bedside tables in 26 named finishes. This guide starts with grey beds, then covers white, oak, black and velvet frames, with real tables, their prices on 21 October 2026, and the rule we use when we stage them: the bed sets the mood, the table sets it off. Counted on the same day, 36 of our tables come in chestnut, 29 in a light mango finish, 11 in white, 10 in black, 7 in a walnut finish and 7 in a grey or taupe finish; a table offered in two finishes is counted in both.

Updated 21 October 2026 by Serge.

The short rule: contrast the bed, match the pair

A grey bed is a neutral, and a cool one. Put a second cool neutral beside it and the corner goes flat: the eye has nothing to land on. Put something warm beside it, a brown wood, a honey tone, a brass knob, and the grey suddenly looks deliberate rather than default. That is the whole trick, and it explains most of the advice below.

The second half of the rule matters as much. The two bedside tables should agree with each other far more than with the bed. Same height, or within about five centimetres, the same depth, and ideally the same finish. The bed can be any colour; the pair is what the eye compares, because the two tables sit either side of a symmetrical object. We sell more than twenty matching pairs for exactly this reason, from £45 for a wall-mounted set of two.

Grey bed: four pairings that work, and one that needs care

Prices are those on each product page when we wrote this; the collection pages are always current.

Warm wood: the pairing we would choose first

Chestnut is the finish we stock in the most models, 36 of them, and on a grey bed it is the one that looks intended. The Stour 45 cm is a plain box with rounded corners on four tapered legs, 45 cm wide, 35 cm deep and 57 cm tall, in solid mango wood with a chestnut finish, at £157. If the bed is a dark grey, go a shade lighter in the wood: the Dove 45 cm is a warm mid-brown named roasted almond, with slim brass bar handles that pick up a lamp base or a curtain pole. For a bigger surface, the 55 cm table with a woven rattan top in a honey caramel finish is the warmest thing we sell, and 55 cm wide suits a king or super king bed. All three are in the dark wood and solid mango wood collections.

Light wood, for a pale grey bed or a low one

A pale grey bed with light mango beside it stays bright, which is the point of choosing pale grey in the first place. The Kennet 36 cm is a slatted open shelf, 36 cm wide and 40 cm tall, in a light finish, at £112; the slats let light through, so it looks lighter than a solid box of the same size. The Dart 45 cm is also 40 cm tall, in a natural finish with one drawer, at £158. Both are low tables: they suit a platform bed or a low grey frame whose mattress top sits around 40 cm off the floor. For a standard divan, the light wood collection has 33 tables from 20 to 45 cm wide, floor-standing and wall-mounted.

White, the cheap and clean contrast

White beside a grey bed is the hotel look: crisp, easy, and the least expensive option we have. Our eleven white bedside tables run from £37 to £73 and are engineered wood with a white finish, as listed, not solid timber. The one we would pick for a grey bed is the 45 cm table with gold-tone metal legs at £56: the gold does the warming job that the wood would otherwise do. White on a very dark charcoal bed can look stark, so in that room we would choose light wood instead.

Black, for a charcoal bed and a light room

Black bedside tables draw a sharp outline against a dark grey or charcoal frame, and the pairing holds together as long as the walls and bedding are light. The black fluted 48 cm at £83 has two fluted drawers with small gold-tone cone knobs on a black metal base; the fluting stops it reading as a black block. In solid wood, the small 30 cm table in ash black at £126 is a matt charcoal wash that lets the mango grain show through, which is softer than a painted black. The full set is in black bedside tables, ten tables from £55 to £228.

Grey on grey: only with texture

A grey bed with a flat grey table beside it is the pairing people regret, because nothing separates the two. It can work, but the table has to bring something the bed does not: a fluted front, a weathered wash with the grain showing, turned legs. The Hamble 45 cm in dark taupe has three fluted drawers on short turned legs, 45 cm wide, 40 cm deep and 58 cm tall, at £259.95; it is the table in the room illustration at the top of this page, beside a pale grey upholstered bed. The Exe 48 cm is a weathered grey-brown wash over a panelled drawer and an open shelf, at £208. And the round 45 cm table in pale grey, on three turned legs with no drawer, at £101, works because its shape is nothing like a bed. All seven are in grey and taupe bedside tables, from £101 to £362.

Which grey is it? Pale, mid or charcoal

Grey beds are not one colour, and the right table depends on how dark the frame is.

• Pale grey, silver or dove: white or light mango keeps the room light; chestnut gives it depth. Avoid pale grey tables, which vanish.
• Mid grey, the most common upholstered bed: any warm wood. This is where chestnut, roasted almond and walnut all work, and where a grey wash table with texture also works.
• Charcoal or dark grey: light mango or white for contrast, or black for a monochrome room with pale walls. Dark walnut beside charcoal makes a heavy corner; if you want walnut here, give the lamp a pale shade.

If the bed is a grey-brown, sometimes called greige or taupe, treat it as a warm neutral: light wood and white suit it better than chestnut, which can look muddy next to it.

What colour bedside tables go with a white bed?

Almost anything, which is why white beds are easy to live with. Wood of any tone warms a white bed; white on white looks flat unless the table has a visible frame or hardware, which is why the white table with gold-tone legs exists. Black beside a white bed is a strong graphic pairing that suits a modern room. Our choice for a white bed would be a light mango table from the light wood collection: it keeps the brightness and adds grain.

What colour bedside tables go with an oak or light wood bed?

This is the pairing where the undertone trap bites. Two woods that are nearly the same tone but not quite look like a mismatch rather than a choice. Either match closely, or go clearly different. Our light mango finish is the one also named oak-ish, and it sits well beside a pale oak frame; the light wood tables are the ones to look at. If you would rather contrast, black, white or a dark walnut finish all read as deliberate beside oak. What we would avoid is a chestnut table next to a honey oak bed: close enough to clash.

What colour bedside tables go with a black bed?

Light wood or white, to keep the corner from going dark. A black bed already gives the room its outline, so the tables can afford to be pale. Walnut works if the room is bright. Black on black only works in a large room with a lot of daylight, and even then we would choose a table with gold or brass details, from the gold bedside tables, so that something catches the light.

What colour bedside tables go with a navy, green or velvet bed?

In our experience a velvet bed reads warmer than a flat-weave one in the same colour, because the pile catches the light. Chestnut, walnut and roasted almond all suit them, and brass or gold-tone hardware ties the colour and the wood together: the Dove 45 cm with its brass bar handles is our usual suggestion for a navy bed. White is the right choice if the room is small and the velvet is dark, because it stops the bed from swallowing the corner.

Do bedside tables have to match the bed?

No, and in our view they should not. A bed and two tables in the same finish is the bedroom-suite look, and it dates a room faster than any colour choice. Pick one element to share, such as the tone of a knob, the shade of the wood in the headboard, or the colour of the lamp, and let the rest differ. The one thing to keep is scale: a 45 cm table beside a king bed, a 30 cm table beside a single or where the gap is tight. Our bedside table dimensions guide gives the widths by bed size.

Mismatched bedside tables: do the two have to match each other?

They do not have to be identical, but they have to agree. Keep the tops within about five centimetres of each other and within five centimetres of the mattress top, which is the rule in our height guide, where the median height of 262 tables we recorded was 57 cm. Keep the depths similar, so neither table sticks out past the other. Then share one thing: the finish, the leg shape or the hardware. Two different tables in the same chestnut look chosen; two chestnut tables of different heights look like an accident. If you want to skip the problem, buy a set of two: they arrive in the same finish and, for the wall-mounted pairs, you fix both at exactly the same height.

Metal details do half the work

Handles, knobs and legs are small, but they are what the eye uses to decide whether two colours belong together. Brass or gold-tone hardware warms a grey or white bed; black metal legs sharpen a white or light wood bed. Sixteen of our tables have gold or brass details, from a £56 white table with gold-tone legs to a brass-plated drawer on a chestnut table; they are gathered in the gold bedside tables collection. If your bed has visible metal, such as a black steel frame, repeat that metal on the table and the colour of the wood matters much less.

Check the floor and the walls before you order

Two more things decide whether the pairing works, and they are not the bed. A table in the same tone as the floor disappears into it: light mango on a pale oak floor needs a rug or a darker bed to stand out, and a walnut table on a dark floor needs pale walls. And a grey bed against grey walls is already a lot of grey; that is the room where warm wood is not a preference but a necessity. If you are unsure, order the lighter of two finishes: a table that is slightly too light reads as fresh, a table that is slightly too dark reads as heavy. For more styling ideas measured against real widths, see our bedside table ideas.

How we chose these

Every finish name in this guide is the one printed on the product page: chestnut, light, roasted almond, honey caramel, dark taupe, grey wash, ash black. The counts are from our catalogue on 21 October 2026, and the prices are those shown on each product page that day. The pairing advice is ours, from photographing and selling these tables; where it is an opinion, we have said so.