Austin Elite Cabinets designs built-in entertainment centers in Austin, TX, and is Travis County's specialist in media cabinetry, specializing in full media walls, TV built-ins with flanking bookcases and low media consoles fixed to the wall. We offer vented equipment cabinets and concealed cable chases.
Book a free design visit
Our team provides custom cabinet layouts sized to the screen, delivering a clean living room wall for homes and hard-wearing cabinet work for both residential and commercial projects. Our own installers take the measure, you sign off on shop drawings before a panel is cut, and the finished wall is covered by a written warranty.
From airflow around the receiver and the path of every HDMI and power run to a paneled wall that surrounds the screen, our team handles every detail. Serving Austin, Volente, Steiner Ranch and The Hills, we build the wall around the way your family actually watches.
Why Austin Elite
No catalogue boxes and no handoffs. The people who measure your room are the people who build and install it.
In the 1970s and 1980s, a television sat on a stand, often on wheels, because the set was a deep box that had to be moved to find a good seat. As screens became thinner and larger, stands gave way to entertainment centers that held the television, the audio equipment, game consoles and a collection of records, tapes or discs, and hid the wiring that came with all of it.
A built-in media wall is the next step. It is cabinetry fixed to the wall and sized to the room, so the screen, the equipment and the storage are one planned piece rather than a cabinet pushed in front of a tangle of cords. What we build for Austin living rooms, game rooms and bedrooms usually falls into three layouts:
A media wall that is built first and fitted with a TV second often ends up with a screen that is too high or too small for the room. We work the other way round, starting from where you sit.
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers guideline is widely quoted as a screen filling about a 30 degree field of view, which for a 16:9 screen works out to a seating distance of roughly 1.6 times the diagonal. THX suggests a wider 40 degree view, about 1.2 times the diagonal, for a more cinematic seat. Higher resolution screens can be watched from closer without visible pixels.
Height matters as much. A common suggestion is that your eyes should line up with the bottom or the middle of the screen, and THX advises that a viewer should not have to look up more than 15 degrees. That is the main argument against a screen mounted high above a fireplace, and it is why we draw the screen position on the elevation, measured from your sofa, before we design anything else. The opening is then sized for the TV you own and, if you are planning to upgrade, the one you intend to buy.
Audio reviewers have long criticized the enclosed entertainment center for four faults: poor speaker performance, inadequate ventilation, restricted access to cables, and limits on the size of the television. A built-in media wall should solve all four, and two of them are about the equipment cabinet.
An AV receiver or amplifier produces heat, and a closed cabinet traps it. Manufacturers publish clearance requirements in the manual for each model, and they typically ask for several inches of open space above the unit and some at the sides. We design the equipment bay from those figures, open the back of the cabinet or cut a vent behind the receiver, and where the equipment demands it, allow room for a quiet cooling fan.
Every HDMI, speaker and power run is planned on the drawings. Cable chases run behind the cabinet boxes, grommets pass wires between compartments, and the back panels come off so the next equipment change does not mean taking the wall apart.
Center and front speakers need open grille fabric or open shelves in front of them, not solid doors. Doors in front of components can use glass or be left open where a remote needs a line of sight to the equipment.
We price a media wall after we have seen the room, because the drivers are specific to your wall and your equipment.
Book a free in-home measure. We will sketch the screen position from your seat, list what goes in the equipment bay, and send a written quote.
We start in the room, with you on the sofa. We measure the wall, the seating distance and the ceiling height, list every component you own, and find the existing outlets and cable locations. The same team that takes that measure installs the finished wall.
Next come shop drawings: the elevation, the equipment bay with its vent openings, and the cable paths. You approve them before we build. The cabinets are made and finished, then fitted on site, leveled and scribed to the wall, with trim to close the gaps. We leave the equipment bay ready for your installer or for you to connect.
Newer lake homes in Volente, many built since 2000, often have large open living rooms where the media wall is the main feature, and planning it before furniture arrives is the easiest time. In Steiner Ranch, homes from the 2000s commonly have a builder niche sized for the televisions of that era, and replacing it with a proper built-in fits today's larger screens.
Lakeway, a Lake Travis community with homes ranging from older lake houses to new custom builds, has every kind of room, so each wall is designed on its own terms. We also work in Austin, Barton Creek, The Hills, West Lake Hills, Rollingwood, Shady Hollow and Sunset Valley.
A media wall often sits in the same room as a wet bar, or across from built-in bookcases that share its finish. Some clients add a home office or a custom closet in the same project so one set of drawings covers the whole house.
The process
Four steps, and nothing is built until you have signed off on the drawings and the price.
We measure the room, talk through how you use it and look at door styles and finishes together.
You get shop drawings and one written price. Nothing is built until you sign off on both.
Boxes, doors and panels are made to the dimensions taken in your home, not to catalogue sizes.
The same crew installs, levels, scribes to your walls and adjusts every door and drawer before we leave.
Questions
It depends on the size of the wall, the box material, the door style and finish, and what the equipment bay needs, such as vents, fans or pull-out shelves. We give a written quote after a free in-home measure.
Not if the cabinet is designed for it. We work from the clearances in your equipment manual, open the back or add vents behind the receiver, and leave room for a quiet fan when the equipment calls for one.
We start from your seating distance. The widely quoted SMPTE guideline puts the seat at about 1.6 times the screen diagonal, and THX suggests about 1.2 times for a more immersive view. We size the opening for your current TV and any upgrade you plan.
We can, but we will show you the viewing angle first. THX advises not looking up more than 15 degrees, and a high mount often breaks that. A lower mount or a wall beside the fireplace is often the better seat.
Yes. We remove the old unit, repair the wall behind it and build a new media wall sized for current screens and equipment.
The schedule depends on the size of the wall and the finish, and it starts once you approve the drawings. You get a timeline with your written quote.
We serve Austin, Volente, Steiner Ranch, Lakeway, The Hills, Barton Creek, Lost Creek, West Lake Hills, Rollingwood, Shady Hollow and Sunset Valley. Call and we will confirm your address.
Yes. Every media wall we build and install is backed by a written warranty, and the crew that installed it is the one that returns if anything needs adjusting.
Free in-home design visit across Austin and the west side. We call you back to set a time.
Calls only, we do not receive text messages.
