The most common kitchen lighting mistake is not too little light. It is one kind of light, everywhere, at the same colour temperature, which reads as a runway no matter how many fixtures you add.
Three layers, three jobs
Ambient fills the room. Recessed downlights on a grid, or a single large fixture if the ceiling allows. Keep this layer slightly warmer and slightly dimmer than you think.
Task is where the work happens — countertops, the sink, the range. Undercabinet strip is the cheapest and best-value layer in any kitchen. Put it on its own dimmer.
Accent is the pendants over an island, or a picture light. This is the layer clients notice and the layer that makes a room look designed rather than lit.
Getting the colour temperature right
Do not mix 3000K undercabinet with 4000K downlights. The mismatch is more obvious in a kitchen than anywhere else in a house because the surfaces are close together and light. Pick one CCT for the whole room — 3000K is the safe Canadian residential answer — and use dimming, not colour, to create hierarchy.
If the client wants tunable white, that is a legitimate answer here: it lets them warm the room for dinner and cool it for cleaning. See our tunable white explainer.