You have a new queen or king bed, with a small table on each side. Now you need two lights. The shop shows lamps from 20 cm to 90 cm tall. So what bedside lamp height suits your bed, and where do wall lights go if you skip the lamps?
We make bedside lamps and wall lights in our own factory in India. Buyers ask us this every week. Below we work it out for one real bedroom, step by step, with a tape and a calculator.
Three numbers the design guides agree on
Good guides measure from the bed, not the floor. OKA, a furniture and interiors maker, gives three rules. The bedside table is one third of the mattress width. The lamp’s widest point is one third of the table. The lamp stands about as tall as the table, around 60 to 69 cm for a standard bed.
Ideal Home reaches the same band another way. Its experts suggest a lamp about two thirds of your headboard height, or around 60 cm. They also give 24 to 27 inches, which is 61 to 69 cm.
Wall lights follow the lamp. Bobby Berk’s guide mounts a bedside wall light 22 to 27 inches above the table top. In cm, the band runs 56 to 69 cm above the table.
Bedside lamp height for a king bed, worked out
Take the most common Indian king mattress, 72 x 78 inches, as listed by Studio Matrx. Say your bedside table stands 55 cm tall. Measure your own table and swap in your number.
- Mattress width in cm. 72 x 2.54 = 182.9 cm.
- Table width. 182.9 ÷ 3 = 61 cm. A 60 cm table fits the rule.
- Lamp width. 61 ÷ 3 = 20.3 cm at the widest point, shade included.
- Lamp height. The table rule gives 55 cm. The guide band tops out at 69 cm. So pick a lamp between 55 and 69 cm tall.
- Wall light height, if you skip lamps. 55 + 56 = 111 cm. 55 + 69 = 124 cm. Fix the light 111 to 124 cm above the floor.
- Gap between two wall lights. A bed frame adds about 10 cm to the mattress, says Arcedior. So the bed is 192.9 cm wide. Each light sits over the middle of its 61 cm table, 30.5 cm out from the bed. Centre to centre: 192.9 + 30.5 + 30.5 = 253.8 cm.
The last sum assumes each table sits tight against the bed frame. Leave a gap, and add it twice.
The same sums for a queen bed
A queen mattress is 60 inches wide, or 152.4 cm. Every other step stays the same.
| Step | Queen (60 in) | King (72 in) |
|---|---|---|
| Mattress width | 152.4 cm | 182.9 cm |
| Table width (÷ 3) | 50.8 cm | 61.0 cm |
| Lamp widest point (÷ 3 again) | 16.9 cm | 20.3 cm |
| Lamp height on a 55 cm table | 55 to 69 cm | 55 to 69 cm |
| Wall lights, centre to centre | 213.2 cm | 253.8 cm |
The height band does not change with the bed. Width does. A queen table takes a slimmer lamp, about 17 cm across.
Why the shade should end near your shoulder
You sit up in bed to read. Your eyes then sit well above the mattress. A lamp of 60 to 69 cm puts the bottom of its shade close to your shoulder. So the bulb stays below your eyes, the shade hides it, and you see the glow on the page.
Glare is light so strong in your view that seeing gets harder. A CIE research note on glare says glare falls when the same light spreads over a larger area. So a linen shade or an opal glass globe beats a bare bulb at the pillow.
Distance matters even more. Light spreads out as it travels. Its strength falls with the square of the distance, as the HyperPhysics inverse square page shows. Hold a book 40 cm from the bulb instead of 60 cm. The page gets (60 ÷ 40) x (60 ÷ 40) = 2.25 times more light. A small lamp beside the bed therefore reads better than a bright ceiling light two metres away.
Width has a plain reason too. A shade wider than one third of the table hangs over the edge. Your hand hits it when you reach for water or your phone at night.
The guides differ only on the reference point. Ideal Home uses the headboard and OKA uses the table. With a tall headboard, follow the headboard rule. With no headboard, follow the table. Either way, stay near 60 to 69 cm and check the shade against your shoulder.
What our own bedside range shows
We measured all 32 lamps in our bedside range on 13 November 2026. The median height is 48 cm. Only 2 lamps sit in the 60 to 69 cm band. Thirteen fall between 45 and 59 cm, 15 are under 45 cm, and 2 are 70 cm or taller.
So most of our lamps sit a little below the guide band for bedside lamp height, close to the height of a typical side table. On a 55 cm table, a 48 cm to 55 cm lamp keeps the pair in balance. On a low table, a short lamp is the right choice. A bedside table lamp height above 69 cm suits only a tall headboard.
Stone, wood and linen that fit these sums
Nature gives the material, human hands shape it, and light connects it to your evening. Three of our pieces fit the sums above.
The Marble Table Lamp with Opal Borosilicate Glass Globe stands 50 cm tall. Its globe is 15 cm across, inside the 16.9 cm limit of a queen table. The base is real white marble, cut and polished by hand, so its grey veins differ on every lamp. The lamp takes an E14 bulb, not included; fit a 3000K warm-white LED.
The Mini Table Lamp with Bamboo-Node Stem is 53.1 cm tall with a 17.8 cm grey linen shade. A shade of 17.8 cm suits a king table. Linen spreads the light, so the bulb stays out of view. Fit one 8 W warm-white 3000K E27 LED of about 700 lumens. A lumen counts how much light a bulb gives out.
Prefer the wall? Our Wall Mounted Reading Light in travertine and wood is 23 cm tall with a 10 cm stone head that pivots. The warm 3000K LED is built in. Any licensed electrician fits it in 20 to 30 minutes at the 111 to 124 cm mark.
Our craftsmen have made every piece in our own factory in India since 2015. Every metal part is 304 stainless steel, and we ship free across India. You can read our certifications. A matched pair of warm lights, one on each side of the bed, gives the balance Vastu thinking values. We take Vastu as inspiration, not a promise.
See all our wall lights for bedroom. Then read how bright a bedroom should be and how high a chandelier should hang over a bed. Not sure about your bedside light height? Video-call us with a photo of your bed and table.