Bespoke media walls, North London
The screen, the fire and every cable behind them, built into joinery that was drawn for one wall in one house.
A television is the ugliest thing in most living rooms
It is black, it is rectangular and it hangs on the wall like a notice board, with a bundle of cable running down to a sideboard covered in boxes that blink. Every other object in the room was chosen. That one was tolerated.
A media wall solves it by making the screen part of the architecture instead of an object stuck to it. Recess the television so it sits flush in the face of the joinery. Put the fire below it in a single line. Take the run out to both walls with shelving and low cupboards. The eye stops seeing a television at all. It sees a chimney breast that happens to be modern.
We are cabinet makers. The unit is drawn to your wall, your screen and the equipment you own, built in our workshop and fitted by the people who made it. Nothing is adapted from a standard carcass and nothing is left for someone else to work around on the day.
The work you are paying for is the work you cannot see
Anyone can build a box and hang a screen on it. What separates a media wall that still works in five years from one that gets pulled apart is decided before a single panel is cut.
Equipment and fires both give off heat. Air has to get in and out of the void. Without it the kit throttles itself while the paint above the fire suffers.
Something will need replacing. Panels are made removable so an engineer can reach the back of the unit without taking the joinery off the wall.
Conduit run through the carcass to the screen position, with spare capacity, so a new device years from now does not mean a cable down the front.
The bracket is fixed into structure we have built for it, not into a plasterboard wall hoping to find a stud in the right place.
Where a fire is included, the opening is built to the clearances its manufacturer specifies rather than to whatever fits the drawing.
Four ways a media wall gets built
Media wall with a fire
Screen recessed above, linear fire below, the two stacked in one face so the wall reads as a single piece. The version most people picture.
Screen only
No fire, more storage. The saving usually goes into deeper cupboards and a longer run, which is the better trade in a smaller room.
Alcove flanked
The centre breaks forward with shelving in the recesses either side, so a period room keeps its proportions and gains the storage it never had.
Floating run
Cupboards lifted clear of the floor with the carpet or boards running under them. Lighter to look at, easier to clean, harder to build well.
Before you commission
We work in houses across Highgate, Hampstead, Muswell Hill, Crouch End, Winchmore Hill, Palmers Green, Southgate, Totteridge, Whetstone, Barnet, Mill Hill and Islington. If your home sits outside that, ask.
Can you build around the television I already own?
Yes. It is worth telling us early. The recess is cut to the screen, so we need the make, the model and the depth of the bracket before anything is drawn. If you are planning to upsize later, say so and we will build for the larger size now.
Do I have to have a fire?
No. Plenty of media walls are storage and screen alone. Where a fire is included it is usually a linear electric unit, which needs no flue and gives us the clearances to build the joinery tight around it.
Where do the cables and the equipment go?
Into the unit. Conduit is run through the carcass to the screen position and the boxes live in a ventilated cupboard below with an infra red repeater if the doors are solid. Nothing should be visible from the sofa.
What happens when something needs replacing?
Access is designed in. Panels are made removable and cable runs are left with spare capacity, so a new amplifier or a bigger screen does not mean dismantling the joinery.
What does a bespoke media wall cost?
It depends on the width of the wall, whether a fire is included, how much of the run is closed storage and the finish. We give you a written quotation against a drawn elevation so you can see what each decision adds.
Do you handle the electrics?
We build the joinery to take them and coordinate with whoever is doing the electrical work, so the sockets, conduit and any fire supply land exactly where the drawing says they should.
Send us the wall and the screen size
Those two things and a photograph are enough to start. We will visit, measure and draw an elevation before anything is made.