TV Unit Designs
A TV unit has one hard job and one soft one. The hard job is swallowing a set-top box, a router, a soundbar, a games console and about eight cables without any of it being visible. The soft job is holding the wall together visually once a large black rectangle has been hung on it.
Most TV units fail at the first. The cabling is planned after the joinery is built, so a trunking box appears on the wall, or the screen sits on a bracket with a bundle of wires hanging behind it. Both are avoidable, but only at drawing stage.
This page covers mounting height and viewing distance, how to route cables properly, the back panel materials that suit an Indian living room, and honest cost bands for each build.
Height and viewing distance, which are not a matter of taste
The centre of the screen wants to be at seated eye level, which for most sofas puts it 1,000 to 1,100mm off the floor. The common mistake is mounting it at standing eye level, around 1,400mm, which looks right when you install it and gives everyone a stiff neck for the next decade.
Viewing distance for a 4K panel is roughly 1.2 to 1.5 times the diagonal. A 55-inch screen therefore wants about 1.7 to 2.1m of seating distance, which most Indian living rooms comfortably provide – the more usual error is buying a screen too small for the room rather than too large.
Layouts, from a floating shelf to a full wall
The floating console is the lightest option and the easiest to keep looking clean, because the floor stays clear and the room reads as bigger. It gives you the least storage, so it only works if the set-top box and console are the entire list.
- Floating console – 450 to 500mm deep, wall-hung, floor left clear
- Console with an open shelf above – the cheapest way to add display without bulk
- Panelled back wall with a floating unit – the panel hides cabling and unifies the wall
- Full-height wall unit – storage either side of the screen, best in rooms over 3.6m wide
- Partition or double-sided unit – screen on one face, storage or display on the other
A full-wall unit turns the television into one element in a composed wall rather than the only thing on it. It swallows far more storage, and it is the right answer in a living room that has no other place for books, board games and the accumulated hardware of a family.
Cable routing is the whole design
Run a 50mm or 65mm PVC conduit inside the wall from the screen position down to the console, before any joinery or panelling is fixed. Everything else follows from having done this. Without it you are choosing between surface trunking and cutting a finished wall.
Put the power socket and the HDMI points behind the screen in a recessed back box so the plug does not foul a flush-mounted bracket, and put a second set inside the console for the boxes. Leave a 100mm gap between the back of the console carcass and the wall as a cable void, and ventilate it – a set-top box in a sealed cupboard runs hot and fails early.
Back panel materials and how they behave
Fluted or slatted panels in MDF or WPC are the current default and for good reason: the vertical rhythm breaks up the black rectangle and the shadow lines hide cable exits. They are also easy to damage at floor level, so a skirting or a stone base below 150mm is worth adding.
Veneer gives the warmest result and needs careful matching across sheets. Stone cladding behind a television looks striking and is heavy enough to need real fixing back to the structure, not to a plasterboard partition. Painted MDF panelling is the value option and the easiest to repair, which matters more than people expect.
Lighting and the reflection problem
The single most useful lighting move is a warm strip behind the screen washing the wall, which reduces the contrast between a bright screen and a dark wall and makes long viewing far more comfortable. It costs very little and it is the detail people notice.
Avoid downlights directly in front of the television, because they reflect straight off the panel. If the room has a window opposite the screen you will need a curtain or blind for daytime viewing, so plan the track into the ceiling detail rather than screwing a rod to the wall afterwards.
Specification
How we build a TV unit
The conduit and the ventilation are the two lines that people cut and then regret.
| Specification | What we build |
|---|---|
| Screen centre height | 1,000 to 1,100mm from finished floor, seated eye level |
| Console depth | 450 to 500mm, enough for a soundbar and a set-top box |
| Console height | 400 to 550mm if the screen is wall-mounted above |
| Cable conduit | 50 to 65mm PVC cast into the wall before panelling |
| Cable void | 100mm clear behind the carcass, ventilated top and bottom |
| Carcass | 18mm BWP ply or HDHMR, with a solid back for wall-hung units |
| Wall fixing | Anchor into the structural wall, never into plasterboard alone |
| Back panel | Fluted MDF, WPC, veneer, stone or painted panelling |
| Power | Recessed back box behind the screen plus a second inside the console |
| Lighting | 2700K warm strip behind the panel, on its own switch |
Budget
What a TV unit costs
| Scope | Indicative range | What moves the number |
|---|---|---|
| Floating console only | Rs 18,000 to Rs 45,000 | Length, finish and drawer hardware |
| Console with fluted back panel | Rs 55,000 to Rs 1.4 lakh | Panel material and wall area |
| Full-height wall unit | Rs 1.6 to Rs 3.5 lakh | Width, storage and glass or lighting |
| Stone-clad feature wall | Rs 2.5 to Rs 6 lakh | Stone selection and structural fixing |
Indicative ranges for the joinery and panelling only. They exclude the television, the soundbar and any electrical work back to the distribution board.
Detailing
Four ways a TV unit goes wrong
Mounting it too high
Standing eye level feels right during installation and is wrong for every hour of use afterwards. Mark the centre line while sitting on the actual sofa before anyone drills.
No conduit in the wall
Decided after the panelling is up, the only remaining options are surface trunking or cutting open a finished wall. The conduit costs a few hundred rupees at the right moment.
Sealing the electronics in
A set-top box or console in an airtight cupboard overheats and shortens its life. Vent the void, or use an open shelf for anything that runs warm.
Forgetting the sofa position
The unit gets designed against the longest wall, then the sofa cannot be placed without blocking a doorway. Fix the seating layout first and let the screen follow it.
Living with it
Living with it
Fluted panels collect dust in the grooves and need a soft brush attachment rather than a cloth, which just pushes dust deeper. Once a quarter is enough in a closed apartment, more often on a ground floor or near a main road.
Check the wall bracket bolts annually, particularly on a plasterboard partition where a chemical anchor was used. If the screen is ever replaced with a larger one, the bracket and the fixings need re-checking rather than reusing – the failure mode is slow, then sudden.
Questions
TV unit questions
What height should a TV be mounted at?
Centre of the screen at seated eye level, which is 1,000 to 1,100mm from the floor for a standard sofa. Sit on the actual sofa, look straight ahead, and mark where your eyeline hits the wall. Anything mounted above about 1,200mm will have people tilting their heads up for years.
Should the TV unit be wall-hung or floor-standing?
Wall-hung looks lighter and makes the floor easier to clean, which in an Indian home with daily mopping is a genuine advantage. Floor-standing carries more weight and needs no structural fixing, so it is the safer choice on a hollow partition wall or where the wall quality is unknown.
How do I hide the cables without breaking the wall?
If the wall cannot be chased, a fluted or panelled back board fixed 40 to 50mm off the wall gives you a clean void to run everything inside, with the exits hidden in the shadow lines. It is the standard retrofit answer and it looks deliberate rather than remedial.
What size TV suits my living room?
Take your seating distance in millimetres and divide by about 33 to get a sensible diagonal in inches for 4K content. A 2.4m viewing distance suits roughly a 65-inch panel. Most people under-buy, then find the screen looks small once it is inside a large joinery wall.
Can a TV unit double as a room divider?
Yes, and it works well in open-plan apartments where the living and dining areas share one volume. The unit needs a finished back rather than a raw carcass, it needs to be fixed to floor and ceiling for stability, and the cable routing has to be planned inside the partition itself.
Next step
Get the conduit in before the panelling goes up
Send us the living room plan and the sofa position and we will mark the screen height, the cable route and the socket positions on a drawing you can hand to the electrician.