Roma Pedestal 33: a 49cm square top at bedside height

The Roma Pedestal 33 is listed at 49 x 49 x 69cm, and that is all the description says. The figures are unlabelled, though with the first two identical only the 69cm is really open to question; ask us to confirm it if the height is what matters to you. Two of those numbers decide whether it works in your bedroom.

69cm against your mattress top

The measurement that matters beside a bed is the height of the top of your mattress, not the height of the bed frame. Divans with a deep mattress often finish somewhere around 60cm to 70cm; a low frame with a thin mattress can be well under that. Lay a tape on the mattress, read off the floor-to-top figure and compare it with 69cm.

A top level with the mattress, or a little above it, is the easy arrangement: you can reach a glass without looking and nothing rolls off onto the bed. A top well below the mattress means reaching down and under, which is the daily annoyance people describe as the table being wrong without being able to say why.

A 49cm square top, and the walkway

Square tops behave differently from rectangular ones beside a bed, because they project the same amount into the room whichever way round they go. At 49cm it is a generous surface for a lamp, a book and a glass together, and it projects 49cm from the wall.

Check what that leaves of the gap between the bed and the wall. A walkway of 60cm either side of a bed is about the point at which a room stops feeling tight, and a 49cm deep pedestal sitting in a 70cm gap will feel different from one in a 120cm gap. Tape the square on the floor before you order.

The 33 in the name is a code, not a measurement

Worth saying plainly, because it confuses people: the number in the product name is part of the supplier's own reference, ROMA-33. It is not a dimension in centimetres or inches. The only sizes that mean anything are the ones in the listing.

What is not described

The listing does not say whether this piece has drawers, a door, an open shelf or a solid body, and it gives no finish, colour or weight. For a bedside piece the storage arrangement is usually the deciding factor, so look at the photographs on the Roma Pedestal 33 page and ring us to confirm what you are seeing rather than take a guess from the name.

Across the rest of the range

The Roma Pedestal 55 is the narrow one at 30.5 x 30.5 x 71cm for a tighter gap, and the Roma Bedside Table - 3 Drawers, listed at 46 x 37 x 67cm, at least names its drawer count. The Pedestal 22 sits in the same part of the catalogue. All of it is under Mirrored Furniture.