Custom Media Walls: Planning Storage, Cables, and Equipment Access

By David Rousso Jr., Principal · Pedini by Daruso · October 2026

The short answer: before you approve a custom media wall, every device on it needs three things settled in the drawing: a home, a path, and a door. A home is a space sized to the device's real dimensions plus the clearance its maker asks for. A path is a planned route for power and signal, with spare capacity, between the screen, the equipment, and the speakers. A door is a way to reach the device after the wall is finished without taking the wall apart. The storage is planned the same way, by what each drawer and shelf will hold. Settle all of it with your AV integrator before the millwork is drawn in detail, have the integrator check the shop drawings before anything is made, and the wall will keep working when the equipment inside it changes.

In this article

• What should be settled before you approve a media wall drawing?

• Which equipment dimensions does the millwork need?

• Where should each device live?

• How should the storage be planned?

• How do you reach the equipment once the wall is finished?

• How should the cables be planned in the drawing?

• What does the AV integrator check, and when?

• What changes for a custom media wall in Miami?

• What do our own media walls show?

• The media wall approval checklist

• Frequently asked questions

• Key takeaways

A media wall gets approved twice. Once from the sofa, when the elevation and the finishes look right. And once from behind, when every device, cable, and drawer has to fit where the drawing says it will. Most of the trouble with built-in TV wall cabinets comes from approving the first and skipping the second: the receiver that turns out deeper than its bay, the games console shut behind a door that gives it no air, the cable that cannot be replaced without unscrewing a finished panel.

We covered the engineering under a media wall in what a built-in media wall has to solve: heat, the electrical code, and fixing the wall to a Miami substrate. This guide is the planning side. It sets out what to settle, in what order, and what the drawing should show before you sign off on a custom media wall, with examples from the living room walls we have built across South Florida as part of our living solutions.

What should be settled before you approve a media wall drawing?

Short answer: six things. The equipment list with real dimensions, where each device lives, what the storage holds, how the cables run, how each device is reached after installation, and who has confirmed that it all fits. If the drawing cannot answer one of them, it is not ready to approve.

The order matters. The equipment list comes first because everything else is sized from it, the same way an appliance schedule comes before a kitchen elevation, an argument we made in what is a panel ready appliance. The sign off comes last because it is the only step that checks the drawing against the real equipment rather than against the idea of it.

Which equipment dimensions does the millwork need?

Short answer: for the screen, its exact model, outside dimensions, weight, mounting pattern, and the depth of its mount. For everything else, the width, height, and depth of each device including the plugs behind it, plus the clearance its maker asks for. A screen's size is its diagonal, which on its own says very little about the opening it needs.

The screen

Screens are sold by their diagonal, and cabinetry is drawn in widths and heights. A 16:9 screen is about 87 percent as wide as its diagonal, so an 85 inch screen is roughly 74 inches (188 cm) wide and 42 inches (106 cm) tall before its frame is counted. That is the number the surround, the niche, or the recess is drawn to, and it comes from the model's specification sheet, not from the size on the box.

The back of the screen matters as much as the front. The mounting holes follow the VESA standard, and on large screens the pattern is usually spaced in 200 millimeter steps, though real displays vary and a 400 by 300 pattern is not unusual. In Ergotron's summary of the standard, that class of interface covers displays up to 250 pounds (113 kg). Take the pattern from the model's specification sheet, the same way you take its width, because the pattern decides where the mount's fixings land on the wall, and that decides where the backing goes behind the paneling. The mount decides the rest: a flat mount, a tilting mount, and an articulating arm each stand off the wall by a different amount, and a recessed screen needs the depth of the mount and the screen together inside the recess.

Then plan for the next screen. Screens are replaced far more often than walls, and the replacement is usually larger. Draw the surround with room for the next size up, or make the panel directly behind the screen a separate infill that can be remade on its own, so the new screen does not mean a new wall.

The equipment

Equipment depth is where most media walls come up short. A current receiver such as Denon's AVR-X3800H is about 17 inches wide and 15 inches (39 cm) deep on its own. Add the plugs and the bend of the cables behind it and a few inches of clearance at the back, which Sony sets at 3.5 inches for its own receivers, and the bay needs around 20 inches (51 cm) of clear depth. That is deeper than most living room storage is ever drawn.

Games consoles are the other surprise. Sony's safety guide for the PlayStation 5 asks for the console to sit at least 4 inches (10 cm) from a wall and not to be used in a closed cabinet or anywhere heat can build up. In a media wall, that means an open cubby with space around it, at a height where discs and controllers can be reached, not a drawer or a bay behind a solid door. Streaming boxes and network equipment are small, but each needs power, a network connection, and a place the wireless signal can get out of.

The clearances themselves vary widely from maker to maker; we compared two receiver makers' figures in our guide to heat in a media wall. That is why the equipment schedule records each device's own number rather than one rule for all of them.

Where should each device live?

Short answer: in one of four zones. The screen zone holds the display and its connections. A ventilated equipment bay, or a closet elsewhere, holds the receiver and anything that runs hot. A speaker line just below the screen holds the soundbar or center speaker, open in front. Everything else is storage: closed below for everyday things, open or glass beside the screen for display.

The table also answers the question clients ask most often: whether the equipment belongs in the wall at all. In a house with a closet or a utility room behind or near the living room, the cleanest media wall holds only the screen, the speakers, and the console, and everything that runs hot lives in a ventilated closet connected to the wall by conduit. In an apartment, where there is rarely a spare closet, the wall usually has to carry the equipment itself, and the equipment bay becomes the most carefully drawn cabinet in the room.

How should the storage be planned?

Short answer: by what it holds, not by how much of it there is. List what the wall has to keep, from remotes and controllers to books, games, and display pieces, and let each object set a drawer height, a shelf spacing, or a depth. Put everyday things in closed drawers below the screen, display pieces on open or glass shelving beside it, and give the equipment fronts that let air and signals through.

A media wall holds more than equipment. Controllers, remotes, chargers, games, books, photographs, a blanket, a board game, the objects a family wants on show. Each one has a size and a frequency of use, and both decide where it goes. Things used every evening go in shallow drawers near the sofa end of the wall. Things used now and then go higher, or deeper. Things meant to be seen go on lit shelves, where the shelf spacing is set to the tallest piece and the light is built into the joinery rather than added above it.

Drawers usually beat doors below a screen. A low drawer brings its contents up and out to you; a low cabinet with a door and a fixed shelf makes you kneel and reach into the back. And depth should follow the contents. A shelf for books needs about 12 inches (30 cm). A bay for a receiver can need 20 (51 cm). When both live in one run, either the whole run is drawn to the deeper of the two, which costs floor space, or the equipment bay is drawn deeper on its own, stepping forward or into the wall behind it.

The fronts are part of the plan too. A solid lacquer or veneer door hides the equipment and stops both air and remote control signals. A mesh, perforated, or slatted front can hide it almost as well and, when it is made open, lets both through. Ask for the open area of any such front, the same way you would ask for a clearance, because a decorative facing over a solid panel looks the same from the sofa and does neither. The console under the screen in one of our Pinecrest living rooms shows how a mesh front reads in a finished room: four bronze metal mesh doors in place of solid ones.

How do you reach the equipment once the wall is finished?

Short answer: through an access route designed into the cabinetry: a removable back or side panel, a service route from a closet behind the wall, or a slide out rack that brings the equipment forward and turns it around. The screen's connections need their own route, usually a mount that pulls forward or a removable panel beside the screen. If the only way in is to unscrew finished paneling, the access was never designed.

Every device on a media wall will be replaced before the wall is. Screens, consoles, streaming boxes, and receivers move on a cycle of a few years; well made millwork is meant to stay for decades. So the drawing has to show how each device comes out and how a new one goes in, including the cables behind it.

There are three common routes. The first is a removable panel, at the back or side of each bay, opening into a service void behind the cabinetry; it is fixed with concealed fasteners and drawn as a panel from the start, so it looks like the rest of the wall. The second is access from behind: when the media wall backs onto a closet or a hallway cabinet, the equipment can be reached from the other side without touching the living room at all. The third is a slide out rack. Middle Atlantic's slide out rotating rack, for one, is made for millwork, cabinets, and flush in wall installations: it pulls out of the cabinet and turns 90 degrees either way, locking at 0, 60, and 90 degrees, so the back of the equipment faces you.

The screen needs the same thinking. A flat mount holds a screen closest to the wall and makes its connections hardest to reach. An articulating mount, a recessed box behind the screen, or a removable panel beside it solves that, and the choice is made with the integrator before the panel behind the screen is drawn.

How should the cables be planned in the drawing?

Short answer: as a schedule. Every run is listed, from where to where, carrying what, by which route, with spare capacity for the runs nobody has thought of yet. Behind the screen, a recessed box keeps power and low voltage apart and the plugs flush with the wall. Between the zones, empty conduit with a pull string lets a future cable go in without opening the wall.

A media wall has more runs than most people expect: video from the equipment to the screen, audio to the soundbar, the subwoofer, and any in wall or in ceiling speakers, network to the screen and to the equipment, power at every location, and control, whether by infrared, radio, or the home network. Each one is drawn, because each one passes through cabinetry that has to have a hole in the right place: through the top of the console, between the back of a shelf and the panel behind it, up into the box behind the screen.

Behind a flat screen, the plugs themselves take space. A recessed box made for the purpose, such as Arlington's recessed TV box, sets a power receptacle and the low voltage connections behind the face of the wall, with a divider between them, so the screen can sit flush. The rules on what can run inside the wall, including why a television's own cord cannot simply be pushed through it, are in our earlier guide.

Then plan for change. The home technology association CEDIA advises homeowners renovating a house to decide where the technology's central hub will be before building work begins and to route power and data to each location before the walls are finished. In a media wall that means an empty conduit with a pull string between the screen and the equipment, spare capacity in it, generous openings where cables cross the cabinetry, and labels at both ends of every run.

What does the AV integrator check, and when?

Short answer: the equipment list, the heat each device gives off and how it is ventilated, the cable schedule, the speaker positions, and how everything is controlled. They check it twice: once before the millwork is drawn in detail, to set the requirements, and once on the shop drawings, to confirm the cabinetry meets them before anything is made.

The AV integrator is the specialist who designs, supplies, and sets up the audio and video systems; the millwork designer draws the cabinetry around them. The two have to meet early. CEDIA's renovation guidance tells homeowners to share their plans with the integrator and to connect the integrator with the builder and the architect, because the decisions that matter most are the ones made before the walls close.

What the millwork needs from the integrator is specific: the equipment schedule with models and dimensions, the heat output of anything going into a closed bay, which devices need a line of sight for their remotes, the speaker models and positions, and the power each location needs. Those answers become the bays, the air paths, the boxes, the conduit, and the access routes in the millwork drawings. Then ask the integrator to check the shop drawings before anything is made. Our cabinetry is manufactured in Italy to the drawings, so a bay an inch too shallow is a revision on paper and a remake once it has crossed the Atlantic.

What changes for a custom media wall in Miami?

Short answer: the building, the light, and the weather. Miami apartments rarely have a spare closet for equipment, so the wall carries more of it. Floor to ceiling glass brings glare onto the screen and sun onto the shelves. And Florida's storms make surge protection part of the plan, with a ventilated, reachable place for it in the equipment bay.

The building comes first. In a condominium tower the media wall is usually fixed to concrete or to a steel stud partition, any work is reviewed under the building's alteration agreement, and there is seldom a closet to take the equipment, so the equipment bay is drawn deeper and its ventilation more carefully. The structural side of that is covered in our guide to fixing a media wall, and the approval track in planning a condo renovation in Miami.

The light comes next. Living rooms here are built around glass, and a screen set opposite a window wall fights reflections all afternoon. Where the plan allows, the screen goes on a wall at right angles to the glass. The same sun reaches the display shelving: wood veneer and book spines on open shelves near a window fade unless the finish is chosen for it, the light side of the climate question we wrote about in which cabinet materials hold up in Florida humidity.

Then the weather. In AEM's 2025 lightning report, released in January 2026, Florida ranked second in the country for lightning density, behind Oklahoma at 73 flashes per square mile. The electrician and the integrator specify the protection; the millwork's job is to give it a place, inside the equipment bay, with air around it and a way to reach it.

What do our own media walls show?

Short answer: the same plan, again and again. Of the 35 project pages on our site, 6 list a living room among the rooms we designed, and 5 publish a photograph of the living room wall. Three of those five residences clearly show a screen on the wall, four screen walls in all, because one residence has two. In a fourth, a framed panel against stone could be a screen showing artwork or a picture, so we leave it out of the count. All four screen walls put closed storage below the screen. Three pair it with open or glass display storage beside it, and three show a soundbar, each set directly under the screen. None shows a loose cable, and none shows a receiver or a games console on an open shelf. Counted October 14, 2026.

The two walls in Fisher Island show the range. In the main living room the screen sits in a recess with the soundbar directly beneath it and a speaker in an open cubby on each side at console level, with a bar and its wine refrigerator concealed behind pocket doors in the same wall, the kind of dry bar we compared in wet bar vs dry bar. In the second room the soundbar hangs under the screen above a long closed base cabinet. In Coral Gables the display storage is in tall lit glass cabinets on either side of the screen. In Pinecrest the screen sits on a wood panel framed in lacquer, with no display shelving at all and bronze mesh doors on the console, part of a whole home millwork package. In Island Estates, the residence left out of the count, a framed panel showing a sunset stands against a book matched stone wall above a closed oak base, with floating shelves beside it; from the photographs alone we cannot say whether it is a screen showing artwork or a picture.

The one living room wall without a screen, in Key Biscayne, is a marble and glass display wall between the kitchen and the dining table. The figures come from the photographs published on each page of our projects, counted in October 2026.

The media wall approval checklist

Before you approve the drawing, every line below should have an answer.

1. Equipment schedule. Every device, by model, with its dimensions, weight, and the maker's clearance.

2. Screen. The model, its real width and height, its mounting pattern, the mount and its depth, and room for the next screen.

3. Locations. Each device drawn in its zone, and a decision on whether the equipment lives in the wall or in a closet.

4. Clearances. Each maker's figure drawn around each device, not one rule for all.

5. Air. Where air comes into and leaves every closed bay.

6. Speakers. The soundbar or center speaker below the screen with nothing in front of it, and the subwoofer's position.

7. Storage. What each drawer and shelf holds, with heights and depths set by the contents.

8. Fronts. Solid where things are stored, mesh, slatted, or open where equipment needs air or a signal.

9. Cables. A run list with spares, conduit with a pull string between the zones, and openings where cables cross the cabinetry.

10. Boxes. A recessed box for power and low voltage behind the screen.

11. Access. How each device is reached and replaced without removing finished panels.

12. Sign off. The integrator's confirmation on the shop drawings before fabrication.

How the media wall fits with the rest of the house's millwork is covered in what a whole home millwork package includes.

Frequently asked questions

What should I decide before approving a custom media wall?

Six things: the equipment list with real dimensions, where each device lives, what the storage holds, how the cables run, how each device is reached after installation, and the AV integrator's confirmation that the equipment fits the cabinetry as drawn.

How deep should built-in TV wall cabinets be?

As deep as what they hold. Shelving for books and everyday storage can be shallow, about 12 inches (30 cm). A bay for a receiver usually needs around 20 inches (51 cm) once the unit's plugs and its maker's clearance are counted. Draw the run to the deepest thing it holds, or make the equipment bay deeper on its own.

Should a media wall have open shelves or closed cabinets?

Usually both. Closed drawers below the screen hold everyday things, open or glass shelving beside it holds what you want to see, and equipment goes behind mesh or slatted fronts, in open cubbies, or in a closet, depending on the air each device needs.

Where should the soundbar go on a media wall?

Directly below the screen, on a ledge or hung on the panel, with nothing in front of it. A soundbar placed behind a door, behind glass, or back behind a solid lip loses the sound it was bought for.

Can a games console go inside a cabinet?

Not a closed one. Sony's safety guide for the PlayStation 5 says not to use the console in a closed cabinet or anywhere heat can build up, and to keep it at least 4 inches (10 cm) from a wall. In a media wall, give a console an open cubby with space around it at a height where discs and controllers can be reached.

How do you get to the equipment behind a media wall?

Through an access route drawn into the cabinetry: a removable panel at the back or side of each bay, access from a closet behind the wall, or a slide out rack that pulls the equipment forward and turns it so the connections face you.

How do you hide the cables on a built-in media wall?

By planning the routes before the cabinetry is drawn rather than hiding them afterward. Behind the screen, a recessed box made for the purpose sets the power receptacle and the low voltage connections behind the face of the wall, with a divider between them, so the screen sits flush and nothing shows. Between the screen, the equipment, and the speakers, the drawing shows a route through the cabinetry with an opening at every point a cable crosses a shelf or a panel, plus an empty conduit with a pull string for the cable nobody has thought of yet. A television's own power cord cannot simply be pushed through the wall, which is why the receptacle goes behind the screen in the first place.

What happens when I replace the TV with a bigger one?

If the wall was planned for it, very little. Draw the surround with room for the next size up, or make the panel behind the screen a separate infill that can be remade on its own, and check the new screen's mounting pattern and weight against the backing behind the panel.

Who checks the AV requirements for a media wall?

The AV integrator. They set the requirements before the millwork is drawn in detail, from the equipment list, the heat each device gives off, the cable runs, and the speaker positions, and they confirm the shop drawings meet them before anything is made.

Can the equipment go in a closet instead of the wall?

Yes, and in a house with a closet nearby it is often the better answer. The wall then holds only the screen, the speakers, and perhaps a games console, and the closet is joined to it by conduit large enough for today's cables and tomorrow's.

Can a media wall hide the TV completely?

It can make the screen read as something else. Some screens and digital art frames show artwork when they are off, which CEDIA describes as displays that mimic framed art, and a screen can also sit behind doors or panels that close over it. Whichever you choose, the screen still needs its power, its connections, and a way to reach them.

Does a media wall in Miami need surge protection?

Plan for it. In AEM's 2025 lightning report, released in January 2026, Florida ranked second in the country for lightning density, behind only Oklahoma. Ask the electrician and the integrator to specify the protection, and give it a ventilated, reachable place in the equipment bay.

Key takeaways

• Every device needs a home, a path, and a door before the drawing is approved.

• The equipment schedule comes first; a screen's real width and height, not its diagonal, size the opening.

• A receiver bay can need around 20 inches (51 cm) of depth; plan the storage depth by what it holds.

• Games consoles belong in open cubbies, not closed cabinets; soundbars need nothing in front of them.

• Draw the access: removable panels, a route from behind, or a slide out rack.

• Run conduit with a pull string between the zones, and plan for the next, larger screen.

• Have the AV integrator confirm the shop drawings before anything is made.

Bring your equipment list

Bring the floor plan, a photograph of the wall, and the list of what it has to hold, and we will show you where each device lives, how the cables run, and how you will reach it all in five years. Visit us in the Miami Design District at 3639 NE 1st Ave, Unit 135, call (305) 853-9598, or in Coral Gables at 250 Altara Ave, call (786) 772-6770. Book a design consultation, explore our living solutions, or browse finished media walls on our projects page.

About the author. David Rousso Jr. is a Principal at Pedini by Daruso, where he leads kitchen and millwork projects across South Florida from showrooms in the Miami Design District and Coral Gables.

Sources (each checked October 2026):

• CEDIA, Renovations: smart home decisions to make early: decide where the technology's central hub will be before building work begins, and route power and data to each location before the walls are finished.

• CEDIA, What is a digital art frame?: a purpose built display that shows static or moving visuals and usually mimics framed artwork.

• Ergotron, VESA standard: large display patterns in 200 mm increments, with variations such as 400 by 300 mm; the class covers displays up to 250 lb (113.6 kg).

• Denon, AVR-X3800H information sheet: 17.1 by 6.6 by 15.3 inches (434 by 168 by 389 mm).

• Sony, notes on installing its ES receivers: more than 3.5 inches of space behind the receiver, and not in a confined space such as a bookcase.

• Sony Interactive Entertainment, PlayStation 5 safety guide (CFI-2015): at least 10 cm (4 in) from a wall, and not in a closed cabinet or other locations where heat may build up.

• Arlington Industries, recessed TV box for power and low voltage (TVBU505): one power and one low voltage opening with a divider, for mounting a TV flush against the wall.

• Legrand AV, Middle Atlantic slide out rotating rack (SRSR): extends and rotates 90 degrees in either direction, locking at 0, 60, and 90 degrees, for rear access to equipment in millwork and cabinets.

• AEM, 2025 U.S. Lightning Report release, January 5, 2026: Oklahoma first at 73 flashes per square mile, followed by Florida, Louisiana, and Kansas.

• WLRN, Florida loses lightning capital ranking, report finds: local report on the same AEM data, January 6, 2026.

Last updated October 2026.