Private houses · Kitchen-diner conversion

VR gaming space: a false wall, hidden wiring and a swing arm for the headset cable

A client felt a small square kitchen-diner was wasted space and asked Lairds to turn it into a VR gaming and entertainment zone. A false wall gave us a flush-mounted screen, storage, somewhere to hide every cable, and a folding arm that keeps the headset tether off the floor.

Client

Private client

Site

A small kitchen-diner in a family house

Scope

Design, joinery, screen, console mounting, VR cable management, lighting, control

Control

Amazon Alexa voice control

The brief

The room was small and square: a blank canvas. The client wanted a space that was multi-functional and easy to use, and that looked the part. The first problem was the television: the only wall for it was an external wall of hard brick, and building a screen into that would have been difficult and expensive.

What we did

Our joiner built a false wall in front of it. What began as a way to get a flush screen became the feature of the room: a column that holds the screen, provides storage and shelves beneath it, and hides the wiring of every device behind it. The client’s Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch and their controllers are mounted either side of the column on HideIt mounts, with their leads running behind the false wall, and the mounts for the VR controllers were printed on our own 3D printer because nothing suitable existed.

The VR headset was wired, as all of them were at the time, and a cable across a floor where someone is wearing a headset is a trip hazard. We fitted a thin metal arm on a hinge at the top corner of the false wall; it swings out to carry the cable overhead while the headset is in use, and folds back with the cable retracting behind the wall when it is put away. The wall was painted a muted blue with RGB LED strips down either side, energy-saving and changeable. A Sky Q box behind the wall switches the room from gaming to television, and everything, including the volume and the colour and brightness of the LEDs, responds to Alexa voice control.

The result

A clean, modern gaming room with nothing on the floor and almost no visible wiring, built around a problem that became the design. See our virtual reality rooms service.

Before and after

The finished VR gaming wall with flush screen, mounted consoles and LED lighting

Building the false wall for the VR gaming space

The screen set into the false wall before finishing

The kitchen-diner wall before the VR gaming space was built

What we handed over

A room that switches from VR to console to television by voice, with the headset cable overhead, the consoles on the wall and the wiring out of sight.