A carpenter kneeling to assemble the first bays of a long TV base unit against a plain cream wall with two sockets, beneath a stepped cove-lit ceiling — 01StartThe bare wall

Raw plywood and grey-oak panels being fixed to the TV wall beside dark ribbed slats, a tape measure and pencil on the console top — 02BuildThe build

The TV wall seen from the doorway: oak diagonal panel, ribbed slats and a long console under a ceiling edged with warm cove light — 03RevealThe glow

The Kisii Residence Episode 3 of 5

The Wall Behind the Screen

A pencil line, a tape measure, a stepped ceiling glowing above and a carpenter kneeling below: how one plain lounge wall became the room’s centrepiece.

Kisii, south-western Kenya
2 min read
4 crafts

Follow the work

The bare wall

Two sockets and a promise

A cream wall. Two sockets at the centre, where a television will one day hang. Above it, a stepped ceiling edged with a line of warm light that is already doing its job.

Everything that follows starts from those two sockets, a carpenter and a drill on a long cable.

Bay by bay

One carpenter, one cable drill, one long base unit

The first thing to arrive is the base. A carpenter kneels on the floor with a drill on a long cable and assembles it bay by bay: open compartments first, then a shelf in the middle bay that ties the whole line together.

Look at the floor in the frames below — sawdust, a cable, a carpenter’s boots. It looks like nothing. It is the hour the whole wall is decided.

Frame by frame

The base unit, assembled in place

Fig. 02 1 of 3
Bay by bay
The carcass takes shape: open bays, grey backs, more bays joining the line as the carpenter works along the floor.
Fig. 03 2 of 3
A central shelf
A shelf goes into the middle bay and the unit becomes one piece.
Fig. 04 3 of 3
The wall around it
Later, the same room from the doorway: panel up, drawers in, the ceiling glowing.

Plywood, slats and a pencil line

A wall you can read

Above the base, the wall itself goes up in layers. Pale plywood first — you can see the grain before it is covered — then ribbed slats on either side, charcoal-grey, with a hair-thin brass-toned line between each rib. Last comes the central panel: pale oak, cut with long diagonals that meet at a point.

A tape measure and a pencil sit on the console top, exactly where they were left. Two craftsmen work the wall together, and beside them a ladder waits its turn.

Close view of charcoal-grey ribbed slats with hair-thin brass-toned lines between the ribs, beside raw plywood — Fig. 06Charcoal ribs with a hair-thin brass line between each, close up.

Two craftsmen, one in a Royalwoods hi-vis vest, steadying and checking the central panel above the TV base unit, a ladder at the right — Fig. 07Two craftsmen at the wall together, a ladder standing ready at the right.

Nearly there

The wall, with its ceiling alight

This is the wall with the cove light on: diagonals crisp against the pale oak, slats standing in ranks either side. The drawers are fitted — oak-fronted above, white below, each with a long bar handle — and the cabling that will feed the screen still hangs where the television will go.

It is not finished: the photographs stop where the work has not. But you can already read the whole idea — a plain wall, given a spine.