Media Wall in Southport

Southport. A floor to ceiling media wall, framed around the TV recess, boarded, skimmed and finished with a downlight in every alcove.

What the customer wanted

The room already worked. What it did not have was anywhere for the television to live. The set was standing against the long wall with the box, the sound bar and four cables behind it, and there was nothing on that wall to break the height up. What they asked for was the whole end of the room as one built-in piece: the screen recessed into the wall, shelving up both sides of it, and light coming out of the shelves rather than from a lamp in the corner.

What was there

A flat plastered wall, floor to ceiling, with a window to one side and a radiator under it. Nothing structural to work around and nothing to hide behind. That cuts both ways. A wall with no features is the easiest one to frame against and the least forgiving once it is skimmed, because there is nothing else for the eye to look at if a line is not straight.

What we did

Framed first, in timber, floor to ceiling. Uprights plumbed and fixed back to the existing wall, then the horizontal rails set out so the alcoves line through with each other right across the face. The TV recess was built around a ply backing board so the bracket screws into something solid, and the socket and the aerial went in behind it at frame stage rather than being chased in afterwards. The wiring for the alcove lights went in at the same time, one drop per alcove, left terminated and boxed for a qualified electrician to connect.

Then plasterboard, cut to the openings and screwed off to just below the paper. A bead on every external angle and on every recess return, scrim on every joint, then skim. A wall this size sits at the longer end of the few days a media wall usually takes, framing to finished skim, and it wants drying time after that before anyone puts paint near it.

The finish

Alcoves down both sides, across the top and under the screen, every one of them returning square, with a downlight in each. That is the part that decides whether a wall like this reads as joinery or as a box. A lit alcove throws light along its own edges, so a return that wanders shows up the moment the lights go on and the room lights go down. Decorated in white, the frame disappears and what is left is the shelving and the light.

More on how these are built, and the questions people ask before booking one, is on the bespoke media walls page. This job was in Southport.

What customers said

4.7 out of 5 on Google and 5.0 from 35 reviews on MyBuilder, plus 100% recommended from 6 recommendations on Facebook. Every review below is verbatim from those profiles, and each one says which.

See all the reviews

Areas we cover

Based on Liverpool Road in Southport. We work right along the Sefton coast, down into Liverpool, and inland across West Lancashire as far as Preston. Every town below has a page of its own.

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