TV wall unit ideas: layouts, finishes and stone for a UAE living room

Which TV wall layout suits your room?

Start with the wall and the way you use the room. The look comes later. Most TV walls end up as one of these:

What do you need to measure on the TV first?

The TV sets the size of the niche, so note its width, height and depth. Allow for the bigger screen you might buy in a few years, because TVs only ever seem to grow. Then turn it round. The four screw holes on the back follow the VESA mounting standard, usually in a square such as 200 × 200 mm or 400 × 400 mm, and the standard also sets the screws and the weight limits for each size.

Bring those numbers to the drawing. The niche needs room for the bracket, the plugs and some air around the set, and where the bracket lands the wall must be solid or have backing behind it.

For the height, sit on the sofa and get someone to hold a sheet of cardboard the size of the screen against the wall. Move it until your neck is happy, then mark it. That beats any rule of thumb.

Source: Wikipedia: Flat Display Mounting Interface (VESA mount)

Which board decors look good on a TV wall?

For an oak look with character, ask for an oak look board with deep cracks and knots. On the one we work with, the texture follows the grain of the print, so it feels like the wood it shows.

For a quiet backdrop, pick a soft grey beige matt board. It is an all rounder, warm and neutral at once. Put the oak on the open shelves and inside the niche, the grey beige on the cupboard fronts, and let the oak take the attention.

Source: EGGER: H1180 ST37 Natural Halifax Oak

Real wood veneer or matt lacquer?

Veneer is a thin layer of real wood pressed onto board, so no two doors are quite alike. The veneers in our materials library include crown cut and quarter cut European oak, smoked oak and American walnut. Walnut is the evening choice: dark and warm, and very handsome next to a black screen.

Matt lacquer is paint, sprayed in the workshop, so the colour can come straight off a RAL card. RAL 9010 Pure white keeps a small room bright. RAL 7016 Anthracite grey lets the TV melt into the wall when it is off. Got a colour in mind already? Bring its RAL number to the visit, and we bring our samples so you can see them in your own light.

Source: RAL: All RAL colours

Which surface suits push to open fronts?

Fronts without handles get pushed every day, often by small hands holding a snack. Look at a super matt surface. One maker of these lists low light reflectivity, a soft touch, anti fingerprint behaviour and thermal healing of superficial micro scratches among its main properties.

Less shine near the screen is welcome, and so is a front that does not keep a record of every push. Hold a super matt black and a super matt dark grey up against a dark screen first.

Source: FENIX: Which are the main properties of FENIX innovative materials?

Which stones work as a TV back panel?

A stone panel behind the TV is the showpiece of the wall. A wall is an easy life for stone: nobody squeezes lemon on it or scrubs it, so the dramatic marbles that need care on a worktop are at their best here. Both of these are rated good for walls in our stone records: Calacatta Viola, white with broad purple red veins, and Nero Marquina, black with scattered white veins.

Ask for a bookmatched pair. Slabs cut from one block are opened up side by side like the pages of a book, so the veins mirror each other across the joint. Behind a TV, that joint can sit right on the centre line.

Stone is heavy, so a stone fabricator cuts the panel and fixes it to a solid wall, and the unit is drawn around it. Browse our TV and feature wall ideas, shortlist two or three stones, then choose your slab at the yard.

Source: Salvatori: Open book marble, what it is and how it is made

How do you plan cables, sockets and LED lighting?

Before anyone cuts a board. Decide where the TV, the receiver and the speakers go, then put sockets where the plugs will be: behind the TV, inside the console, and one at worktop height for a lamp. A wide tube inside the wall from the TV down to the console lets you pull a new HDMI cable through in five years without opening anything. An electrician confirms the circuits.

For light, run LED strip under the shelf edges or around the niche. One maker's 12 V strip, for example, is dimmable and comes in 2700, 3000, 4000 and 5000 K. The same maker recommends an aluminium profile for diffuse light and heat management, and notes that a strip section fed by a new power supply looks noticeably brighter than the one before it. Long runs need planning.

The drivers that power the strips need a home you can reach later, such as a ventilated cupboard in the unit with the router on the shelf above.

Source: Häfele UK: Loox5 LED strip lights, 8 mm (catalogue page 1.18)

How is a TV wall unit fixed to the wall?

A floor standing unit usually sits on a plinth, and its weight goes down through the boxes to the floor. The screws into the wall are there to stop it leaning or tipping. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission started its Anchor It! campaign because of injuries from furniture and TV tip overs, and it says anchoring furniture with drawers, doors and shelves to the wall prevents them.

A floating console is the opposite case, because the wall carries all of it. On a solid block wall that is straightforward. A plasterboard wall needs backing behind it at the right heights. We check what your wall is made of at the free measuring visit, then scribe the unit to it and fix it level.

Ready to draw yours? Send a photo of the wall and rough sizes from our page for TV units and wall units, and we reply with an estimate.

Source: U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission: Anchor It!