Media Wall Plans: What to Include and How to Draw One

If you're about to build or commission a media wall, take an hour with a tape measure and a pencil before anyone touches a saw. A proper media wall plan, even a simple hand-drawn one, is what separates a media wall that looks like it was always part of the room from one where the TV sits slightly off-centre, the cables are visible down one side, or the recess turns out to be too shallow for the soundbar you already own.

This guide walks through exactly what a proper media wall plan should contain: the measurements that matter, why you need both a front elevation and a side elevation, how to plan TV position, fireplace clearance, shelving, cable routes and existing sockets, and a full materials list. It also answers the question we get asked constantly, whether there's a free media wall plans pdf you can simply download and use, honestly: what generic templates get wrong, and the two approaches that actually work for your specific room.

Why a media wall plan is worth doing properly

A media wall plan matters because once a timber frame is built and boarded over, every dimension on it becomes fixed. Move the TV bracket two inches to the left afterwards and you're cutting into finished MDF, patching, filling and repainting a wall that was supposed to be finished. A plan, even a simple hand-drawn one, forces you to answer the awkward questions, exact TV position, recess depth, where the cables actually run, before they cost you time and materials rather than five minutes with a pencil.

This matters whether you're planning to build the media wall yourself over a couple of weekends or having it designed and installed professionally. If you haven't already looked at the build itself, our guide on how to build a media wall covers the construction sequence step by step; this article focuses on everything that needs deciding before that sequence starts, because a plan that's wrong on paper is far cheaper to fix than a wall that's wrong in timber.

What should be included in a media wall plan?

A proper media wall plan should include eight things: full wall and ceiling measurements, a front elevation, a side elevation, your TV's exact position and size, fireplace position and clearance if you're including a fire, a shelving layout, cable routes from every socket to every device, and a complete materials list. Miss any one of these and you risk a build that looks right from the sofa but doesn't actually work, most commonly a recess that's too shallow, cables that show, or a TV that sits slightly off-centre because the wall itself wasn't measured accurately in the first place. For typical widths, heights and recess depths across different TV sizes, our media wall dimensions article is worth reading alongside this one; it covers the numbers, this one covers how to turn those numbers into a plan you can actually build from.

Wall width, height and ceiling height

Start by measuring the full width of the wall at floor level and again near the ceiling, because older properties are rarely perfectly square and a difference of even 10 to 15mm changes how your frame needs to be scribed in. Measure floor to ceiling height in at least two places too, and note any bulkheads, coving or sloped ceilings that would affect how tall the unit can go before it starts to look cramped under the ceiling line rather than part of the room.

TV position and size

Your TV's screen size and its exact width (not the box dimensions) set the minimum recess width, and the screen's centre height, generally around 1.4 to 1.6 metres from the floor for a seated viewing position, sets where the recess sits vertically. Get this wrong and you end up with a TV that's technically mounted but sits too high or too low for comfortable viewing from your actual sofa, which is a much harder thing to correct afterwards than to plan for properly.

Fireplace position and clearance

If you're including a fire, its manufacturer's clearance requirements, typically a minimum distance above the fire to any combustible material and a minimum gap to each side, are non negotiable and need to go on the plan before anything else is measured around it. This is one of the areas where a media walls with fireplace build benefits from a proper site visit, because clearance requirements vary between fire models and getting it wrong is a safety issue, not just a cosmetic one.

Shelving layout

Decide shelf depth, spacing and what's actually going on each one before you build, because shelves deep enough for a games console are often too deep for ornaments, and shelves spaced purely for symmetry sometimes don't leave enough height for a soundbar or amplifier box. Sketch what you actually intend to display or store on each shelf, not just the shelf itself.

Existing socket positions (power, broadband, aerial)

Mark every existing socket, aerial point and broadband connection exactly where it sits on the wall, including height off the floor, before you plan anything else around it. If your existing connection is a Virgin Media box, it's worth reading our guide on Virgin Media wall sockets first, since relocating or concealing that particular type of socket has its own rules around not disconnecting the service.

Cable routes

Plan the exact route each cable will take from its socket to the TV, the fire's power connection and the soundbar, before the frame is built, not after. This is the single detail most DIY plans skip, and it's the reason so many finished media walls have one visible cable trailing along a shelf edge. A TV wall mounting and concealed wiring approach routes cables inside the frame itself, but that's only possible if the routes are decided at the planning stage rather than worked out once the boarding is already up.

Soundbar position

Decide whether the soundbar sits on a shelf below the screen, tucked into the TV recess itself, or built into the wall as part of a proper acoustic design, because each option needs a different depth and clearance allowance on your plan. Rooms where sound quality genuinely matters, home cinema rooms in particular, are often better served by a bespoke acoustic media walls design than a standard shelf, since acoustic panelling and speaker placement need to be part of the plan from the start rather than added on afterwards.

Materials list

Once every measurement and position is confirmed, write out a full materials list: sheet material for the frame (usually MDF or plywood), timber for the frame itself, adhesive and fixings, and your chosen finish, whether that's paint, veneer, stone effect panels or timber cladding. Only finalise this list once the plan itself is finalised; ordering materials against a plan that might still change is one of the most common and expensive mistakes people make. Our project gallery is worth a look at this stage too, for a sense of how different finishes actually look once built, rather than just how they look as a small sample.

Front elevation and side elevation: why you need both

Do you need a side elevation as well as a front view?

Yes, because a front elevation only shows width and height, and depth is what actually determines whether your TV, bracket and soundbar will fit in the recess you're planning to build. A front elevation is the drawing most people picture: a straight-on view of the wall showing where the recess, shelves and fire sit, their widths and heights, and how they're positioned relative to each other. It's the drawing that tells you whether the proportions look right. A side elevation is a cross-section view instead, showing the wall from the side, and it's the only drawing that tells you the recess depth, how far the TV sits back from the front face of the frame, and whether there's room behind it for cables, brackets and ventilation. Skip the side elevation and you're guessing at depth, which is exactly how people end up building a recess that's 20 or 30mm too shallow for the TV bracket and soundbar together.

• Measure total wall width and height, floor to ceiling
• Measure ceiling height and note any slope or bulkheads
• Mark existing socket, aerial and broadband positions exactly
• Confirm your TV's exact width and screen centre height
• Measure fireplace width, height and required clearance if included
• Decide recess depth based on TV bracket and soundbar depth
• Sketch a front elevation showing widths, heights and shelf positions
• Sketch a side elevation showing recess depth and cable routes

DIY media wall plans versus a professionally drawn plan

Can you draw your own media wall plan?

Yes, plenty of homeowners produce perfectly workable diy media wall plans, provided every measurement is checked against the real object, the actual TV, the actual fire, the actual socket position, rather than a standard figure found online. A pencil sketch on graph paper, done properly with both a front and side elevation and every measurement double-checked, is genuinely enough to build from if you're doing the work yourself or briefing a joiner you trust. Where DIY plans go wrong isn't usually the drawing itself, it's skipping a measurement because it seemed obvious, then discovering during the build that the fire's clearance requirement or the TV bracket's actual depth don't match what was assumed.

Where a professionally drawn plan earns its keep is on anything involving a fireplace, structural changes, or where you want cables fully concealed rather than just tidied, since those all benefit from someone who's measured hundreds of similar rooms and knows where the assumptions usually go wrong. It's also worth checking pricing at this stage if you're weighing up DIY against a professional build, and our media wall cost guide for Manchester breaks down what to expect to pay for each approach in more detail.

Is there a free media wall plans PDF you can download?

No, and if you do find one online, treat it with real caution, because a generic media wall plans pdf is built around a standard wall width, a standard TV size and a standard fireplace, and very few real rooms match all three at once. Search for media wall plans free online and you'll find plenty of generic templates, but the reason they rarely translate into a working build is the same reason a one-size-fits-all wardrobe rarely fits a room properly: your wall width, ceiling height, socket positions, TV model and fireplace, if you have one, are all specific to your house, and a template can't account for any of them.

There are two approaches that actually work instead. The first is to draw your own simple front and side elevation using the measurement checklist above, working from your actual wall, TV and fire rather than assumed figures; that alone puts you well ahead of anyone working from a downloaded template. The second, and the more reliable option if you want confidence before committing to materials, is a free, properly measured design from a home visit, which is more useful than any generic template because it's built around your actual room rather than an average one.

Common mistakes when planning a media wall

The mistakes that come up most often are avoidable, and nearly all of them trace back to skipping one of the steps above. The most common is building without a side elevation at all, then discovering the recess depth was guessed rather than measured, which is usually the point at which a TV or soundbar simply won't sit flush. Close behind is drawing cable routes as an afterthought, after the frame is already built, which forces cables to be surface-run or chased in after the fact rather than concealed cleanly from the start.

Another frequent one is not rechecking socket positions against the final TV position once the plan is finished; sockets get marked early, the plan shifts slightly during design, and nobody goes back to confirm the socket still lines up with where the TV actually ended up. And ordering materials before the plan is properly finalised causes more wasted MDF and returned deliveries than any other single mistake, simply because a late change to recess width or shelf spacing means the cut sheet ordered a week earlier no longer matches.

Getting your plan measured properly

If you'd rather not guess at any of this, the most reliable starting point is having someone measure the room in person rather than relying on photos or a rough tape measure guess. We offer a free home design visit across Manchester, Wigan and the wider North West, and it results in an actual plan: correct wall and ceiling measurements, a front and side elevation, sockets marked, and cable routes decided, built around your specific room rather than a generic template.

Whether you end up building the media wall yourself from your own plan or having it designed and installed for you, the principle is the same: measure properly, draw both elevations, decide cable routes before the frame goes up, and don't finalise a materials list until the plan itself is finished. Get those four things right and the rest of the build follows naturally.