Task Lighting Questions Checklist

Walk through the home and note every place somebody regularly looks closely at something, including places that were never meant for it.

Close work migrates to wherever is comfortable rather than wherever was planned, and the record has to follow it.

Record hobbies, mending, model-making or anything that involves small parts, and note where in the home each one is actually carried out.

These activities often call for more light than anything else in a home, and they are rarely mentioned in a lighting brief.

Note where children do homework, which is often a kitchen or dining table rather than the desk that was bought for it.

Planning light for the unused desk instead of the used table is a common and entirely avoidable mistake.

Record where post is opened, forms are filled in and paperwork is dealt with, since that spot is often lit only by whatever is overhead.

Small routine tasks in poor light are tolerated indefinitely because nobody thinks of them as tasks.

Mark each of these positions on your room sketch, showing which direction the person faces and what is behind them.

Direction of facing decides where the light must come from, and a position without it is only half the information.

Note whether each task is a brief moment or something someone settles into, because those two situations call for quite different answers.

A momentary task can be served by general light; a sustained one usually cannot.

Stand at each working position after dark with the usual lights on and note where your own shadow falls across what you are doing.

This takes moments to check and produces better evidence than any general statement about a room being dark.

Record which working positions have all their light arriving from behind the person, since that arrangement leaves a shadow across the work itself.

Overhead light behind the shoulders is the usual arrangement in homes and lies behind a good many complaints about kitchens and desks.

Note whether the person at each position is left or right handed, since a hand can cast a shadow over its own work depending on where light arrives from.

This detail changes the answer and is almost never volunteered by an owner.

Note where you block the light when reaching into a cupboard, an appliance or a low unit, so the shadow arrives with you.

Light from the room cannot reach into a space you are standing in front of, which is why so many interiors stay dark.

Record where light bounces off the surface you are working on, such as a glossy worktop, a screen or a sheet of paper.

Reflected glare makes a well-lit surface unusable, and it is a separate problem from shadow though often confused with it.

Describe each shadow problem by where you stand, which way you face and what is lit behind you, rather than asking for a particular fitting.

A described problem invites a solution you had not thought of, while a requested fitting closes the conversation early.

Note which stretch of worktop you actually prepare food on, which is often not the one that looks like the obvious preparation area.

Habit settles on one spot near the bin, the tap or the window, and the light needs to follow the habit.

Record where a wall cupboard or shelf overhangs the working surface, and whether the space beneath it is lit at all at present.

Overhanging storage creates a permanently shaded strip exactly where the work happens.

Note where you have to read small print on packaging or a dial on an appliance, and whether you currently take it elsewhere to read it.

Carrying something across the room to read it is a reliable sign that the light where it belongs is inadequate.

Record how the sink is lit and whether you can see whether something is actually clean while it is still in your hands.

The sink is used for far longer than the preparation surface and is often lit only by whatever reaches it from the ceiling.

Lighting near sinks, taps and any water source involves requirements that vary by location and must be confirmed with a suitably qualified electrician.

Note where hot pans are carried between the cooking surface and elsewhere, and whether that route is lit or crosses a dark stretch.

The carrying route matters as much as the surfaces, and it is one people plan around without ever mentioning it.

Record whether the surface used for eating and the surface used for preparing want the same treatment, since they are frequently the same piece of furniture.

One surface serving two conflicting demands is a case for separate control rather than for a compromise between the two.

Note which seat each person reads in, including the one nobody planned for, and mark the direction they face on the sketch.

Reading seats are chosen for warmth, view or habit, and the light was almost never a factor in the choice.

Record whether light reaches the page from over a shoulder or from in front, and note which shoulder that is for each seat.

Light arriving from the wrong side puts the reader in their own shadow, exactly as at a work surface.

Note where screens are used, what is behind them from the viewer's position, and whether anything reflects in the screen after dark.

A bright surface behind a screen makes viewing tiring, and a fitting reflected in it is worse still.

Record where one person reads while another watches something in the same room, since that conflict has to be solved by separation.

This conflict arises in a great many living rooms, and it needs stating plainly rather than being left to a compromise nobody chose.

Note whether anyone reads in bed, whether both sides of the bed need it, and whether one person's light disturbs the other.

Bedside reading is a task with an unusual requirement, in that it must serve one person without affecting the person beside them.

Where a floor or table lamp would serve a seat, note where it would stand and how power would reach it without a cable crossing a route.

Whether a lamp can be served at that spot without a trailing cable is a question to put to a suitably qualified electrician for this property.

Note which mirror in the home is actually used for anything requiring care, since it is often not the one over the basin.

People migrate to whichever mirror has the strongest daylight, and that migration tells you exactly where light is missing elsewhere.

Record whether the light at each mirror comes only from above, and note what that does to the shadows under eyes and chin.

Light from directly overhead is rarely a helpful direction for a face, and it is a very common arrangement in homes.

Note where clothes are chosen and whether colours can be told apart there, or whether you have to carry something to a window.

Choosing clothes is a task requiring reasonable colour judgement, and it usually happens in whichever corner of a bedroom the light reaches least.

Record where a full-length mirror stands and whether the person standing at it blocks the light that was meant to reach it.

This is the same shadow problem as at a work surface, and it is solved by direction rather than by adding more light.

For any mirror in a bathroom or shower room, write your needs as questions and carry them to a qualified electrician without proposing anything.

Lighting in bathrooms and shower rooms is governed by requirements that vary by location and must be determined by a suitably qualified electrician.

Note who else uses each mirror and whether they need something different, including anyone who uses it seated or at a different height.

A mirror serving two people of different heights is a genuine constraint worth stating plainly in the brief.

Note every wardrobe or hanging space where you cannot see what you are picking out without carrying it into the room.

Deep hanging space is nearly always dark, and it is far easier to raise while joinery is still being planned.

Record which deep cupboards and corner units you have to feel about in, and note what is stored at the back of each.

Owners stop registering this after a while, which is why it disappears from briefs entirely.

Note how an understairs store, loft access or outbuilding is lit and what you are usually looking for when you go in there.

These spaces are visited rarely and usually urgently, which is exactly when unfamiliar darkness causes the most trouble.

Record whether you can see properly at the consumer unit or any service position, or whether it is done by torchlight held in your teeth.

Any lighting at or near a consumer unit or service position should be discussed with a suitably qualified electrician rather than improvised.

Note where shelving sits in shadow, particularly where books or labelled containers have to be read from a distance.

Reading a spine or a label is close work performed standing up, and it needs light arriving on the vertical face.

For storage not yet built, record what will live in it and how you will need to see into it, and pass that to whoever is designing it.

Any lighting integrated into joinery must be agreed between the maker and a suitably qualified electrician, including how it is powered and reached.

Note where somebody works temporarily, such as a laptop at a dining table, and decide whether that arrangement is really temporary.

Temporary arrangements outlast most fittings, and treating them as permanent produces better decisions.

Record where two people using the same position want noticeably different amounts of light, and say which of them uses it more.

This difference is real, common and easily accommodated if it is stated before anything is fixed.

Note whether anyone in the household has found they need more light than they used to, and pass it on as an observation rather than a specification.

What light a person with a particular sight condition needs is a matter for their own qualified professional rather than for a general checklist.

Consider whether a portable task light would suit a position better than anything fixed, and record where you think that applies.

Movable light is often the honest answer for a task that has never stayed in one place.

Mark which task positions depend on a piece of furniture staying exactly where it is, and say how likely that is to remain true.

An aimed light and a moved table are a familiar and entirely predictable disappointment.

Plan to revisit the task positions once the rooms are furnished and in use, and note who you would ask to adjust anything then.

Task lighting is the part of a scheme most likely to need adjusting once real life resumes in the room.