See what your living room could become.

We start with your everyday sofa, in its usual position facing the wall. Daniel's starting point is for your seated eye line to meet somewhere between the middle and the lower half of the screen. From there, the position needs to feel comfortable for you.

If you use a recliner, allow for how you sit with it extended too. Leaning back changes your viewing angle. The TV height should work for the way you watch, before the rest of the media wall is arranged around it.

Our first advice is to avoid building out more than you need to. An inset fireplace on a flat wall can mean adding studwork around 30cm deep, depending on the fire and its installation requirements. That depth comes out of your living space.

For a slimmer media wall, we often suggest a decorative panel with the TV on a bracket, without a fireplace or base cabinets. If you have a chimney breast, shelves in the alcoves use the recesses either side. On a flat wall, floating shelves project into the room but look lighter than shelving enclosed in full cabinet surrounds.

We include an access panel behind the TV for the sockets, plugs and LED wiring. Everything sits out of sight, with a way to reach the connections when something needs changing.

Where there is enough room and ventilation, the Sky box can sit behind the television too. We plan the access alongside the finish so the connections aren't permanently sealed inside the wall.

A TV on a bracket in front of the finished wall generally gives you more flexibility. The replacement still needs a suitable bracket and fixings, and the panel behind it needs to be large enough for the new screen to look right.

A recessed TV is different. If the opening closely fits the original screen, a bigger television may mean altering the wall. Tell us if an upgrade is likely, so we can allow for it when choosing the panel size and deciding whether to recess the TV.

Our usual advice is to choose one or the other beneath the TV. Combining a fireplace and cabinetry in that space can look crowded. Giving one feature enough room usually produces a cleaner result.

Daniel would generally choose cabinetry because it gives you somewhere useful to put things away. If you mainly want a fireplace for the flame effect, weigh that atmosphere against the storage you would give up. Some electric fires also provide heat, so the choice depends on the model and what you want from it.

If the fire is the part you love most, we can make it the focus and plan the rest around it.

We usually mount the TV on a bracket with space behind it rather than enclosing it in a tight recess. We also leave room around equipment such as the Sky box within the accessible area behind the screen.

The amount of space needs to suit the equipment. TV boxes, consoles and amplifiers have their own ventilation requirements, particularly inside cabinetry. Clearances should follow the instructions for each device; a fireplace also needs its own installation clearances.

We ask what you want to display and what you would rather put away. Family photographs, school pictures and ornaments can go on shelves either side of the TV. Albums, yearbooks and other belongings can have a home in the cabinets below.

There is often more room for storage than people expect. We can tailor cabinet widths and depths to what they need to hold, while considering how far they will project into your room.

The inside can be bespoke too. Customers sometimes ask for concealed compartments, extra internal sections or drawer dividers. Knowing what you want to store at the start helps us make those details useful.

Daniel's preference is a simple layout with fewer competing finishes. One combination he likes is fluted acoustic panelling behind the TV, a larger backing panel, lighting either side and a dark walnut cabinet below. There is texture and storage, but each part has room to be seen.

He would steer away from adding more timber, cabinets and decorative panels just to fill the wall. A painted finish can feel more contemporary, while pronounced wood grain can give a more traditional feel. Neither is automatically dated.

The aim is a media wall that suits your home and your taste. Keeping the design restrained gives the materials a chance to do the work.