What is needed for a media wall?
A media wall needs a timber stud framework with plywood reinforcement behind the screen, first-fix electrics certified to BS 7671, a recess sized to your television and fire, plasterboard and skim, and a finish. It also needs roughly 200 to 350mm of depth, which a chimney breast usually already provides.
The structural materials
The framework is CLS timber studwork, fixed to the existing wall and floor, with noggins wherever a fixing or a shelf lands. Plywood is laid into the framework behind the television position so the mount bolts into solid timber across its whole footprint rather than into plasterboard with cavity fixings. This is the single most common failure point in a badly built media wall, and it is invisible once boarded, which is exactly why it gets skipped.
Over the frame goes plasterboard, taped and skimmed to a finish that takes paint cleanly. Where a feature cladding is specified — slatted oak, marble-effect porcelain, veneered MDF — it is fixed to the boarded surface as a separate operation once the plaster has dried.
The electrical work and certification
You need power behind the screen, a switched supply for the fire, and a low-voltage circuit for LED lighting with its transformer housed in a fire-rated enclosure. All of it is first-fixed before the boards go on, because the entire point of the structure is that no cable is ever visible afterwards.
The work falls under Part P of the Building Regulations and must be certified to BS 7671, the 18th Edition Wiring Regulations. Our electrician is NICEIC-approved and in-house, so this is not a separate trade you book and chase. The certificate carries six-year insurance-backed cover and is the document a conveyancing solicitor asks for when you sell.
What you supply and what we do
Most clients choose their own television and electric fire — that way you land on the specific model you actually want, and we buy it on your behalf through trade accounts that knock ten to fifteen per cent off list price. Popular choices include the Dimplex Optimyst (£700 to £1,500) for its water-vapour flame, the Solution Fires SLE140 (£450 to £900), and the wide-format Acantha Vertex (£1,200 to £2,000). Whatever you select is itemised on the quote as its own line, so the total stays transparent.
Everything else — framing, electrics, boarding, plastering, joinery, lighting, painting, cable management and the certificate — is ours. Planning permission is not needed, since this is internal work, though a listed building needs Listed Building Consent for anything touching original features and we handle that application where it applies.
From our London projects
The practical constraint in most London sitting rooms is depth rather than width. A recessed television and a fire want roughly 200 to 350mm, and a Victorian chimney breast typically projects enough to supply it without stealing floor area. Where a room has no breast — a 1930s semi with a flat wall, or a flat conversion where the breast was removed — the structure has to build that depth outward, and the room loses it.
Where a gas fireplace is still live, the supply must be capped by a Gas Safe engineer before we frame over it, which runs £150 to £250 and is quoted separately because it is a different registration to ours.
More on how the fixed price breaks down, or book a free site survey. You can also generate a free design mockup for your own room, or head back to the Media Wall Installers London homepage.
See it in your own room.
Answer five short questions and our generator produces a photographic mockup of your media wall in about fifteen seconds. Yours to keep, no obligation.