Living rooms across Didcot fall into two clear categories and the right media unit design depends on which one you have. The Victorian terraces near Broadway and Station Road have a front room built around a chimney breast, with two alcoves either side that are almost always unequal in width. The newer estates at Ladygrove, Valley Park and especially Great Western Park favour open-plan living and dining spaces with a wide, flat stud wall rather than a chimney breast, which is a completely different design problem for a media wall.
In the terraced layout the television usually sits on the chimney breast itself or is built into one alcove, with storage either side balanced visually even though the two sides differ in actual size. In the open-plan new-build layout there is no chimney breast to anchor the design, so the media wall becomes the focal feature of the room, often running the full width of one wall with the television mounted centrally and equipment storage either side or below.
Because the new-build estates use plasterboard partition walls rather than solid masonry, cable runs and socket positions need to be planned before the joinery goes in, working with the qualified electrician we work with to chase in power, aerial and network cabling behind the panel line rather than trailing it externally. We draw every media unit in CAD first, so the equipment layout, ventilation and cable routes are agreed before manufacture begins.
