Almost every badly-lit UK kitchen is running some mix of the same ten errors — downlights in a grid, one switch for everything, a stray cool bulb, no light at the worktop, pendants hung too high. Each has a specific, mostly cheap fix below. If you only fix one: move light over the work, out from the middle of the room.
We audit kitchens the way mechanics listen to engines — the faults repeat. Here are the ten we see most, in rough order of how much each one costs the room, with the fix for each. Several are bulb-swaps; only two need an electrician.
1. The downlight grid
Fitted for ceiling symmetry, not for the work — so you stand in your own shadow at every counter. Fix: lights go 30–45cm out from the wall units, over the worktop, hob and sink. Placement beats quantity — the full geometry is in the kitchen guide.
2. One switch for everything
The kitchen is either fully lit or dark — no evening mode exists. Fix: separate circuits for general, task and pendants; dimmer on the pendants. The cheapest transformation an electrician can sell you.
3. The stray cool bulb
One 4000K bulb in a 3000K ceiling — replaced in a hurry, never matched — and the whole room looks subtly broken. Fix: check every bulb's kelvin marking; replace the layer as a set. One temperature per layer, always.
4. Warm but muddy
Bargain bulbs render 3000K warmth with CRI in the low 80s — wood goes beige, food goes flat, and nobody can say why the kitchen looks tired. Fix: CRI 90 minimum in the kitchen; CRI 97 where food and faces matter most.
Nimbus Pro GU10 · CRI 97
Mistakes 3 and 4 fixed in one order: a matched set, one temperature, dimmable, at accuracy that makes oak look like oak. Label the spares.
5. No light at the worktop at all
Wall units cast the counter into permanent dusk while the room behind blazes. Fix: under-cabinet strip at the front edge of the unit, aiming slightly back at the work — or a line of task downlights per mistake #1.
6. Pendants hung at head height… or in the clouds
Too low blocks sightlines; too high becomes a ceiling light with a long flex. Fix: bottom of shade 75–85cm above the island surface — the full island measurements.
7. Glare at the sink window
A downlight directly behind you at the sink reflects off the dark window every evening. Fix: move the sink light in front of your standing position, or angle a tiltable fitting toward the basin.
8. Cool-white everything
A 4000K+ kitchen photographs clean and lives cold — the food-court effect. Fix: 3000K working layers, 2700K where people sit. The kitchen belongs to the house, not a laboratory.
9. Non-dimmable "dimmable" setups
LED bulbs that flicker or drop out at low levels on an old dimmer. Fix: dimmable-marked bulbs plus a trailing-edge LED dimmer — the pairing matters more than the brand.
10. Forgetting the kitchen is a room
All function, no warmth: nothing glows, nothing is beautiful, the room dies when cooking ends. Fix: one piece with presence — a glowing pendant, a wall light on the free wall — dimmed as the evening layer. The cottage kitchen guide is this principle at full strength.
