Mine start from £500 per square metre. Here is what sits behind that number, and what makes one wall cost more than another the same size.
It is the first thing anybody asks, usually within about thirty seconds of opening the front door. Fair enough. So here is the straight answer before anything else: my media walls start from £500 per square metre.
Let me tell you about two jobs I did within a few months of each other. Both walls were almost exactly the same size, a shade over eight square metres. Both in ordinary South London living rooms. One cost noticeably more than the other, and the reason explains this whole page.
The first was a clean wall. One recess for the television, one long opening for the fire, flat returns, skimmed and painted a soft off white. Beautiful thing, quietly done. It went up, it got plastered, it got painted, and it was finished.
The second wanted six niches. Stepped at different depths, lit individually, with a deep colour finish that needed extra coats over fresh plaster. Same square metres. Perhaps twice the internal corners to frame, board, bead and plaster, plus cable runs to four separate lighting positions.
Same wall on paper. Two different jobs in the room.
Because this is building work, not a product off a shelf. A media wall is a structure built into your house, so the cost tracks its size the way an extension or a plastering job does. Twice the area is roughly twice the frame, twice the board, twice the plaster and twice the days on site.
It also gives you something to measure a quote against before anyone sets foot in your house. If a figure comes in at half that rate, ask what has been left out. If it comes in at triple, ask what has been added. You would be surprised how often that one question changes a conversation.
Measure the width and the height of the wall you want built, multiply them together, then multiply by the rate. For the sizes I see most often:
From, not fixed. That rate is the floor, not the finish. It tells you whether a media wall is in your world at all. The site visit tells you the actual number.
This is the one people never guess. It is not the size of the wall that drives the labour, it is how many holes are in it and what shape they are. Every recess has five internal faces to frame, board, bead and plaster, and every internal corner has to be true, because a wonky return is the one thing your eye finds every single evening from the sofa.
Skim and emulsion is the baseline, and there is nothing wrong with it. Microcement, polished or textured plaster, fluted panelling, stone or tile all cost more, in material and in the extra coats and drying days they ask for. Cladding adds weight too, which means I have to build the frame to carry it from day one rather than strengthening it afterwards.
Trade emulsion and a premium low sheen are different prices, and deep colours over fresh plaster often need another coat to sit evenly. It is a small line on a quote that makes a visible difference in the room.
Cove lighting, backlit shelving, individually lit niches. Each one means more cable, another driver to site, and more careful setting out while the frame is still open. A wall lit in four places is simply more work than a wall lit in none.
A radiator, boxed pipework, a meter cupboard, a consumer unit. All of it has to be dealt with before a frame can go in. And if there is no power near where the television is going, that gets added as well.
Sloped ceilings, chimney breasts, bay returns, walls that are nowhere near plumb. Older houses rarely are. I would far rather spend an extra half day getting the frame true than hand you something that looks fine until somebody puts a level on it.
The television and the electric fire are usually bought separately, because people have strong opinions about both and the prices swing wildly. I am glad to point you at units that suit the design and will actually fit the recess properly, which matters more than it sounds. Whatever ends up included gets written into your quote in plain English, so there is never a conversation later about what either of us assumed.
Send me the rough width and height, a photo of the space, and tell me whether you want a fire and lighting. I will come back with an initial estimate without visiting, because you should not have to book a stranger into your house just to find out if this is affordable.
If that figure works, I will come and measure properly and give you a fixed quote. Site visits are free within fifty miles of London. And I quote fixed rather than day rate, so the number you agree is the number you pay unless you change the brief.
If you are renting, moving within a year or two, or the budget is genuinely tight, a fitted unit is the better answer and I will say so. I have written honestly about that here. I would rather lose a job than build somebody an expensive thing they cannot take with them.
But if you are staying put, and you are tired of looking at a tangle of cables, and you want a fire in the room, a media wall does something no piece of furniture can. It stops being an object in the room and becomes part of it.
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