A media wall where the cables have somewhere to go

Solve the cables before anything else

A wall-mounted television has a power lead, an HDMI or two, an aerial or fibre feed, and usually a soundbar. Left unplanned, all of it hangs down the wall.

• A recessed back box behind the screen, holding a socket and the signal points, so the leads never leave the wall.
• A conduit from that box down to the console position, sized to let a plug through — not just the bare cable.
• A ventilated compartment for the set-top box, router or console. These run warm and a sealed cupboard shortens their life. Perforated backs or a gap at the top of the carcass.
• Line of sight for the remote, or an IR repeater, if the box is behind a solid door.

All of this is first-fix work. It happens when the wall is open, before finishing.

Sizing and position

Screen centre should sit roughly at eye level from the seated position — normally about 1000 mm to 1100 mm off the floor for a sofa, which is lower than most people instinctively mount it. Above a fireplace or a high console is a neck-ache.

Comfortable viewing distance for a 4K screen runs roughly 1.2 to 1.6 times the diagonal. In a typical flat living room of 3.5 m to 4 m that supports a larger screen than people expect — the constraint is usually the wall, not the eyes.

Making the wall do more than hold a screen

• Fluting or slats across the backing panel — the same detailing as a slatted partition — with a light grazing them, is the cheapest way to give the wall depth.
• Display niches with their own strip lighting, sized to what will actually go in them.
• Closed low storage below — the living room accumulates things and open shelves show all of it.
• Backlighting behind the screen (bias lighting) genuinely reduces eye strain in a dark room, and costs almost nothing to add while the wall is open.

The rest of the room

The media wall is one elevation of four. What usually decides whether a living room works is more ordinary: whether there is somewhere to put a cup down from every seat, whether the walkway between sofa and screen is clear, whether the room has a light setting for television as well as one for guests, and whether there is closed storage for the things that otherwise live on the floor.