Kitchen Task Lighting Questions Checklist

Stand at each worktop after dark with only the ceiling light on, and note whether your own body is between the light and the surface you are using.

This is the defining test of kitchen lighting and takes very little effort to carry out honestly.

Note which hand each regular user works with and where they naturally lean, since that changes where the shadow falls.

A layout planned for one person can leave another working in shadow at exactly the same spot.

Write down the rough range of heights of the people who use the kitchen, and note anyone who works seated.

Task light that clears one person's head can fall straight behind another, and the difference is easy to state in advance.

Photograph the worktop with someone standing at it in the current lighting, and keep the picture with your kitchen notes.

A photograph of the actual shadow removes the argument about whether the problem is real.

Note any lamp, torch or open cupboard door already used to get light onto a worktop, since each one marks a failure to be fixed.

Household workarounds are the most reliable description of what the current lighting does not do.

Check the ends and corners of each worktop run separately, since these are usually darker than the middle and are used just as much.

Corner worktops collect appliances and preparation and are lit by whatever happens to spill into them.

Mark on a plan the stretch of worktop where most preparation actually happens, not the stretch where it is supposed to happen.

Households use one area far more than the rest, and the plan often assumes an even spread that never occurs.

Note where recipes are read from, whether a book, a tablet or a phone, and record how that surface is currently lit.

Reading at a worktop is a different demand from chopping on it and is almost never mentioned in a brief.

Write down every non-cooking use of the worktops, such as homework, paperwork, hobbies or laying out shopping.

These uses often happen when the kitchen is otherwise idle, and they justify controls that do not light the whole room.

Note where the kettle, toaster and other regularly used appliances sit, since people stand at them and reach behind them.

Appliance areas need enough light to see behind and around them, which a purely central fitting rarely provides.

Note which cupboards, larders or deep drawers are hard to see into, and record what is stored there.

Seeing into storage is a genuine task and needs raising with the joinery maker rather than treated as ceiling lighting.

Any lighting built into joinery must be coordinated with the maker and its supply arranged by a qualified electrician.

Put the positions in order of importance so that any later reduction removes the least used rather than the least visible.

Reductions happen late, and a written order protects the positions that actually matter to the household.

Raise under-cabinet lighting with the kitchen designer before cabinetry is ordered rather than once the drawings are agreed.

Once units are being made, changes to what is concealed inside them become awkward for everyone.

Ask where any under-cabinet fitting would sit and whether it would be visible when you are seated at a table across the room.

A strip visible from the dining chairs is one of the most frequent regrets in an otherwise careful kitchen.

Ask how the supply reaches concealed lighting and what has to be drilled or channelled in the units for it.

Routes through cabinetry have to be agreed by the maker and the electrician together, which does not happen by itself.

Cable routes and supply arrangements for concealed lighting must be settled between the joinery maker and a qualified electrician.

Mark any worktop with open shelving or nothing above it, since concealed under-cabinet lighting is not available there.

Open shelving is chosen for its look and quietly removes the easiest task lighting option in the kitchen.

Note whether lighting is wanted at plinth level or on shelves, and record what it is for rather than how it should look.

Stating the purpose lets the designer judge whether it belongs in the scheme at all.

Ask how concealed lighting would be reached if it failed, and whether cabinetry would need removing to get at it.

Concealed fittings behind fixed joinery are the hardest thing in a kitchen to attend to later.

Getting at concealed lighting or its supply again is work for a qualified electrician, and units should not be taken apart by the household to reach it.

List every working surface with nothing above it, including islands, peninsulas and worktops under a window.

These are the positions where task light has to come from the ceiling or from a hung fitting, which changes the discussion.

Write down what the island is genuinely used for, separating preparation from eating, homework and setting shopping down.

An island doing several jobs needs light that can change, which has to be said before fittings are chosen.

Sit where people sit at the island and note what would be directly in the eyeline of someone facing across it.

Fittings above an island are looked at by everyone seated there, which is not how they are judged on a plan.

Note whether the island position is finally settled, since ceiling positions above it cannot be resolved while it is still moving.

Island layouts change late in kitchen design, and lighting above them is usually set out earlier than that.

Note whether a worktop sits under a window and how it is lit after dark, since the daytime answer disappears at night.

A sink or preparation area under a window often has no artificial light at all because the daylight hid the omission.

Ask what is known about the ceiling above the island and whether anything would restrict where fittings can go.

The answer determines whether the lighting can follow the island or the island has to follow the ceiling.

Whether the ceiling over an island will take any fitting at all is something the professionals working on it have to establish before positions are agreed.

Note how the sink is lit after dark, and whether someone standing there is working in their own shadow while washing up.

The sink is used every day and is regularly forgotten because it is often under a window.

Where a fitting is wanted directly above a sink, raise that with the electrician early rather than including it as an ordinary position.

Positions above water are treated differently and should be settled first rather than assumed.

Anything sited over a sink has to be ruled on by a qualified electrician working to whatever applies at your own address.

Note whether the extractor provides light over the hob, how good it is and whether the household actually uses it.

Extractor lighting is counted as hob lighting in many plans and frequently proves inadequate for cooking.

Ask the appliance supplier what light the extractor gives and whether its lamps can be changed, and pass that to the kitchen designer.

This information comes from the appliance maker rather than the lighting discussion, and the two rarely meet.

What may be positioned near a hob or extractor must be confirmed with the appliance maker and the qualified professionals installing it.

If the extractor gives no useful light, record that the hob still needs its own answer rather than assuming the ceiling covers it.

Cooking is the task most likely to be done in poor light because everybody assumed somebody else had solved it.

Note that fittings near a hob collect grease and steam, and ask what cleaning any proposed fitting there would need.

Fittings that cannot be wiped easily become the dirtiest thing in a clean kitchen.

Write down what has to be judged by eye in this kitchen, such as whether meat is cooked, whether a surface is clean or how a dish looks.

These are colour tasks, and naming them makes the colour of light a design question rather than an afterthought.

Note how the kitchen looks in daylight compared with how it looks in the evening, and describe the difference in plain words.

The gap between the two is what a lighting professional needs to hear about, in your words rather than in numbers.

Ask that the colour of light be consistent between the ceiling, the under-cabinet lighting and any hung fittings.

Mixed colour is very visible along a run of worktop, and it usually happens because the fittings were bought separately.

Look at every worktop and door sample after dark under the kind of light the room will actually have, not only in the showroom.

Kitchen finishes are chosen in daylight and used in the evening, which is how unexpected colour shifts arrive.

Note where cooking and eating share a space, and record that the same room needs to read differently at those two moments.

A kitchen that is also a dining room has two colour demands, and stating both prevents one winning by default.

Where the kitchen opens into another room, note what colour of light will be seen alongside it from the same seat.

Differences that are invisible room to room become obvious when both are seen at once.

Note how reflective each worktop under consideration is, and look at a sample under a bright light before deciding.

A polished worktop can throw glare back into the face of whoever is working at it.

Consider what a glass or polished splashback would reflect, including the ceiling fittings and anyone standing behind you.

A reflective splashback doubles every fitting in the room and is chosen for entirely different reasons.

Note whether cabinet doors are glossy or matt, and look at how a sample behaves with a strong light in front of it.

Gloss doors reflect the ceiling fittings at eye level, which is only obvious once the kitchen is finished.

Sit at the table and note which fittings or reflections are in view from there, since that is where people spend the longest.

Kitchens are designed standing and inhabited sitting, which is where the glare complaints originate.

Note what the window shows after dark, since it becomes a mirror and reflects the whole kitchen back at you.

A worktop light in front of a dark window appears twice and can be uncomfortable at the sink.

Keep the finish samples together with a note of where each was looked at, so later comparisons are made on the same basis.

Samples judged in different places produce contradictory decisions that nobody can reconstruct afterwards.