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Concealed wiring adds a professional finish to a TV wall. It does and the most common way people do it in Australia is illegal.
Pushing the television’s own power lead, or an extension cord, down inside the wall cavity is not permitted here. Flexible cord is not fixed wiring, and only extra-low-voltage cable belongs in a cavity. One Perth licensed electrical contractor puts it as bluntly as you like: “never run a standard power extension cord inside a wall, as it creates a major fire risk.”
Most tv walls ideas galleries skip straight to the interior finishes. So this is a guide to the tv wall with the two boring constraints handled first the cables and the mounting and then the joinery, the surfaces and the decorating that everyone actually searches for.
The cable
Custom joinery can hide cords and enhance storage and floating media consoles can help conceal wires and cables. Both true, and both describe hiding cable behind something rather than inside a wall. That distinction is the whole rule.
It is worth knowing that this applies to a wall mounted tv in every example a rental, a new build, an apartment. What you can do yourself: run HDMI, Cat6 and speaker cable through the cavity. Extra-low-voltage is fine, and a hardware chain sells an in-wall HDMI grommet kit for around $55.
What you cannot do yourself: put mains power in there. The legal solution is a recessed power outlet behind the screen on fixed wiring, installed by a licensed electrician, and you should be handed a certificate for it. As the same Australian electrician notes, “if you plan to move power outlets or install new wiring inside the wall cavity, Australian law requires a licensed electrician.”
The penalties are not nominal. Queensland’s regulator publishes up to $40,000 for an individual, rising to $600,000 or five years where the work risks death or serious injury. NSW publishes “$22,000 as an individual or $110,000 as a company”, with no homeowner exemption regardless of the cost of the work.
One gap worth naming. The US sells in-wall-rated mains relocation kits; Australia largely does not, and a major hardware chain’s own guide to hiding TV cables never mentions an electrician at all. If a kit you are looking at includes a power cable, check it is approved for the job here before it disappears into a wall.
If you would rather not call anyone, the honest answer is surface cable management a wall drop channel is about $34 and takes ten minutes.
What the wall holds
Wall-mounted TVs can create a cleaner, spacious look, wall-mounted TVs can create a floating appearance, mounting a TV can maximize space in small rooms and mounting a TV can make a room appear larger. All true, and all downstream of one question.
Real Australian retail weights, screen only: a 55-inch is about 9.3kg, a 65-inch OLED 21.2kg, a 75-inch 27.9kg and an 85-inch 47.4kg. Televisions have also grown, the typical Australian purchase went from 32 inches in 2015 to 50 inches in 2024, and around 40% of the market by value is now 70 inches and above.
Now the framing. Australian studs sit at 450mm or 600mm centres. A tv wall mount plate typically has slots around 400mm apart, and an imported bracket designed for American 16-inch framing will reach exactly one Australian stud at 600 centres. That is the single most common failure, and one Australian installer names it directly: “the bracket’s mounting slots are 400mm apart” while “studs are 600mm centres.”
The bracket that only reaches one stud
Two rules follow. Find the studs before you buy the bracket, and buy a bracket whose plate spans two of them. And never hang a screen on plasterboard alone Australian installers are unanimous and unsubtle: “never, under any circumstances, hang a TV on just plasterboard using plastic anchors.”
A modern tv wall is a structural detail before it is a decorative one. If the house has steel studs, which many newer Australian homes and apartments do, that is a different fixing again and brick, block or rendered masonry is different a third time. Check the VESA pattern too, which is the hole spacing on the back of the screen. Common sizes run 200 × 400, 300 × 200, 400 × 400 and 600 × 400, and they do not track screen size, one 65-inch model uses a smaller pattern than a 55-inch.
Height, and distance
The Australian consumer body publishes viewing distances for 4K: roughly 105–180cm for a 55-inch, 125–215cm for a 65-inch and 145–250cm for a 75-inch. Measure the room before you choose the screen.
For height, Australian installers converge on 1050–1150mm from the floor to the centre of the screen in a seated living room, rising to 1400–1650mm in a room where people stand.
Which brings us to the brief’s most-repeated idea. Combining a fireplace with a TV wall is a popular design choice and installing a TV above a fireplace is a popular design choice. Popular, yes and above a mantel the screen centre lands at 1400–1600mm, which is 300 to 500mm higher than the comfortable seated figure. There is a heat question too: Australian fireplace makers publish minimum clearances to a screen above (250mm, 350mm and 460mm on three models), and one states plainly that no fireplace manufacturer “will warrant the television above the fireplace.” If you are doing it anyway, get the clearance from the appliance manual rather than the showroom.
The joinery
Integrated cabinetry can enhance the functionality of a TV wall, built-in shelving provides storage for media consoles and installing built-in shelving can enhance TV concealment. This is where the budget goes, and Australian rates in 2026 sort into three tiers.
A wall-hung console built to order runs about $4,000–$8,000+. A built-in with shelving is $10,000–$20,000+. A full wall of joinery with the screen integrated is $15,000–$30,000+, and architectural work runs beyond that. Per linear metre, Sydney cabinetmakers quote roughly $850–$2,500. The middle path most people miss is cut-to-size flat pack: a 3,000mm wall lands around $1,800–$3,000 supply-only.
Joinery is also where the storage space comes from: cabinets and drawers below the screen for the things that otherwise sit on the floor, and shelf space above for the things you want seen. Low-profile consoles create an illusion of more space around the TV and using a sideboard as a TV unit can conceal the TV a tv stand or sideboard is still the cheapest way to get the job done, and an off-the-shelf floating unit is the compromise between the two.
If you recess the screen
There is one Australian sizing rule worth having. A Sydney kitchen and joinery designer’s allowance is “one-quarter to one-third the width of the TV as clearance from the wall or joinery end panel, on both sides.” For a 65-inch that is 360–480mm each side, so the opening wants to be roughly 2,170–2,410mm wide.
On depth: about 100–150mm for a fixed bracket, 200–350mm for a full-motion arm, with 20mm at the sides for hand access behind the screen and 40–60mm top and bottom for ventilation.
And an Australian AV installer’s argument against doing it at all, which deserves a hearing: “a recess is usually built around one model or one screen class, but TV dimensions, connection positions, vent clearances, and bracket points vary more than people expect.” Screens have grown 56% in a decade. Build the hole bigger than today’s television, and keep the joinery functional rather than tailored to one model.
Hiding it, or not
A gallery wall can blend a TV into the background and gallery walls can integrate the TV into the decor and gallery walls around TVs create a chic aesthetic the brief says it three ways, and there is a dimensional reason these often fail.
Australian joiners put the TV centre at 1,000–1,100mm. Australian frames-hanging guidance puts artwork centre at 1,450–1,520mm, with 50–80mm between frames. Those two centrelines are half a metre apart, so a gallery arranged to normal picture-hanging rules will float above the screen rather than surround it. If you want the arrangement to read as one composition, hang to the screen’s centreline, not the room’s.
What hiding it actually costs
The alternatives are worth pricing honestly. A 65-inch art-mode television is about $2,195, which is less than the entry-level joinery you would build to hide an ordinary screen. A motorised TV lift starts around $850, and Melbourne makers publish stroke-and-weight specs (650mm/45kg up to 930mm/100kg). Using plants can help soften the appearance of a TV and plants can enhance the decor around a TV setup a bit of greenery, or a view to the outdoor space beyond, does more for a hard black rectangle than any amount of décor. Cheapest option of all, and keep them out of the heat rather than worrying about the electronics.
The wall behind it
A dark accent wall minimizes the contrast of a black TV, dark walls can camouflage a TV and enhance decor and moody paint colors make a TV wall feel cohesive and intentional. This is the rare brief claim that is right, verifiable and has an Australian source and a physical mechanism.
Dulux Australia’s colour forecaster says it almost word for word: “sometimes just a dark wall as a backdrop for art or to help minimise the impact of your wall-mounted television is all that’s needed in a room for that balance of light and dark.” Her warm/cool split is the useful refinement “cooler dark colours can recede and make a space feel larger. Warmer dark colours can create a cosy mood.”
The mechanism is real too. Perceived black depends on what surrounds the screen: display research puts a black pixel at roughly 0.0044 cd/m² against a dark surround and near 1 cd/m² against a bright one a couple of hundred times deeper with the lights and the wall dark. A dark wall genuinely improves the picture, not just the photo.
The caveat is hers as well, and it undercuts a lot of the galleries: “darker colour tends to work best in closed rooms rather than open plan.” Most Australian TV walls are one end of an open-plan box.
Two or three different colours on a TV wall fight each other, and the black rectangle wins. Using a monochromatic color palette keeps a TV wall feeling cohesive and accent walls can create visual interest around TVs. A feature wall in one deep tone, with the rest of the room left pale, is the whole trick.
The surfaces, priced
Transforming a TV wall enhances the living room decor, and here is the ladder from cheapest to dearest, installed per square metre:
- Paint – $20–$40, or $30–$55 for a deep colour. Unbeatable value.
- Limewash – $35–$65. Concrete walls provide a modern, moody aesthetic for TV areas, and a limewash or microcement finish is how most people get that look without pouring anything.
- VJ panelling – $80–$150. VJ panelling creates a stylish backdrop for TVs and it is the most Australian of the options.
- Wallpaper – roughly $100–$430. Using wallpaper behind a TV can add depth to the design and wallpaper can add depth behind a TV: the brief says it twice and it holds up, particularly a textured or grasscloth paper.
- Timber slat and fluted panel – $150–$300 installed, or about $117/m² supply-only. Wood paneling adds warmth to TV wall designs, wood paneling adds warmth and texture to TV areas, vertical wood slats add warm texture to a TV wall and textured panels can modernize a TV wall and enhance visual depth – four ways of saying the thing that is currently specified more than anything else.
- Stone cladding – $180–$450+. This is the luxury tier, and the one that reads sophisticated in a photo and heavy in a quote. Using stone or marble creates a luxurious accent wall for a TV and marble is a durable material for TV wall features, with the reminder that stone is heavy enough to need a proper substrate rather than plasterboard.
One practical note nobody makes: choose a matte or low-sheen finish. A high-gloss wall beside a screen throws reflections, and Australian painters already advise against gloss on large wall areas for exactly that reason.
Shelves, and the claim to drop
Floating shelves can maximize space around your TV and asymmetrical shelving can enhance the aesthetic of a TV wall and off-center layouts can create a dynamic visual appeal around a TV. All fine, with one dimensional conflict worth knowing. Australian joiners build entertainment units at 400–500mm deep and bookcases at 300–350mm, while a decorative floating shelf from the hardware chain is 240mm deep and rated at 5kg into plasterboard. So the shelf that matches your bookshelves will not take an AV device, and will not take much of anything else either.
Now the claim to drop. Backlighting behind the TV can reduce eye strain and enhance the visual effect. The second half is true and the first half has nothing behind it. Bias lighting is a real technique with a real specification, the broadcast standard wants a neutral 6500K background at about 10% of reference white but that standard exists for accurate evaluation of a picture, not for comfort, and it makes no claim about eye strain. Every source advancing the eye-strain version is selling a light strip. Australian prices run from about $134 to $469, and notably neither major listing states a colour temperature, so you cannot verify the 6500K that makes it work.
Buy it because a glow behind a screen looks good in a dark room. That is a good enough reason.
Where to start
- Decide where the power comes from. If it goes in the wall, book an electrician before anything else.
- Find the studs. Buy the bracket to suit them, not the other way round.
- Set the screen centre at 1050–1150mm, and check the viewing distance against the screen size.
- Then choose the material paint first, panelling or slats next, stone last.
- Joinery last of all, and build the opening wider than the television you own.
A TV wall is a focal point whether you plan one or not, which is the real argument for doing something deliberate with it. Feature walls can enhance the visual appeal of mounted TVs and painting the wall behind the TV can camouflage it and between those two sentences sits about $30,000 of possible design decisions.
The cheapest version works: one deep colour, a floating console, cable in a channel, screen at the right height. There is real beauty in a wall where nothing competes, and the elements that matter are few. Explore the joinery once you know the space works, and if you opt for timber, a warm mid-brown ages better than anything orange. Discover what you actually watch on it first. A living room arranged around watching tv wants different furniture from one arranged around conversation, and the stylish answer is the one that suits your lifestyle and the way the house is used rather than the one that photographs best. That is the sense worth taking from any image you search for: an entertainment space should serve the living space it sits in, and the best inspiration is a room that still works with the television off. That is a style you can live with, and a bit of fun costs nothing.
Get the cable legal, get the bracket into timber, and everything after that is aesthetic.
