Can I do my own media wall?

The stud framework is the easy part, which is why it is the part every YouTube build films. A confident DIYer can set out CLS timber, fix it to wall and floor, and get the face plumb over a weekend. The trouble sits in the work that does not photograph well.

The plywood carrying the television mount has to be laid into the framework at the correct height and depth before anything is boarded, so a 40 to 50kg bracket lands on solid timber for its full footprint instead of on 12.5mm of plasterboard. A mistake there announces itself months later, when the screen starts to sag. A skim flat enough to take paint without telegraphing every joint is a trade in its own right, and a face that has to be redone is the usual reason a weekend build overruns its budget.

Then there is the rule the build videos never mention. BS 7671 regulation 522.6.201 covers any cable buried less than 50mm below a wall surface: it either runs in one of the permitted zones, or it carries an earthed metallic covering, or it is mechanically protected against damage. Take the zone route in a home, and 522.6.203 wants a 30mA RCD behind it as well. A media wall gives that cable 12.5mm of cover and then invites you to drill a bracket into it, which is why the wiring gets set out before the frame goes up rather than chased in afterwards.

Less than the internet implies, and not where you expect. Our price list separates the base build, meaning framework, recess, first-fix electrics, plaster and paint, from every option layered above it, and everything a homeowner could realistically build sits inside that base. The options above it are not labour you are avoiding. They are products you would buy at list price while we buy through trade accounts at ten to fifteen per cent below it. A Dimplex Optimyst runs £700 to £1,500. Slatted oak cladding adds £400 to £800, marble-effect porcelain £300 to £600, library-style joinery £2,000 to £3,500. None of that gets cheaper because you swung the hammer.

So the honest comparison is £300 to £700 of materials against our published floor of £3,500, and what sits in the gap is labour and certification rather than markup. That floor is clamped in code, so the calculator cannot quote below it however you set the options. Two or three weekends of your own time buys a wall with no certificate attached to it, and redoing studwork you have already boarded eats the difference fast. We are not competing for the painted-box build and we will not pretend otherwise.

Some of it is not a skill question at all. Where a live gas supply still runs to the fireplace you are building over, a Gas Safe registered engineer has to cap it before the framework closes it in. Unregistered gas work is a criminal offence rather than a technicality, and the cap is quoted separately at £150 to £250 because it sits under a different registration to ours.

On the electrics, the claim you will read that DIY wiring is illegal in England is simply wrong. Adding a socket or a fused spur off an existing circuit is not notifiable, provided you are not in a bathroom or shower room, though the work still has to meet Part P and BS 7671. A new circuit is notifiable, and that goes either through a registered competent person or through building control before you start. What DIY cannot produce either way is the paperwork. The certificate our in-house NICEIC electrician issues at handover comes with six years of insurance-backed cover, and it is what a buyer's solicitor asks to see. A statutorily listed property needs Listed Building Consent for anything touching original features, which we apply for at £200 to £400.