Two things quietly decide whether a kitchen is pleasant to spend time in, and neither of them is the cabinetry. Light and air.
Light you can work by
A kitchen needs light in layers: ambient light for the room, task light on every surface you actually work on, and accent light for the parts worth looking at. Miss the task layer and you end up cooking in your own shadow, which is both unpleasant and genuinely unsafe around knives and heat.
Air you can breathe
Cooking puts grease, steam and combustion by-products into the room. Without proper extraction they settle on your cabinet doors, sit in your soft furnishings and stay in the air you are standing in. A recirculating filter is better than nothing. A hood ducted to the outside, sized to the cooktop and run at the right rate, is the actual answer.
The two problems are related
Grease in the air coats light fittings and dulls them, so a badly ventilated kitchen also becomes a badly lit one over time. Clients often tell us their lighting has faded. Usually it has just been filmed over.
Design both in early
Duct routes and lighting circuits are decided by the layout. Once cabinets are set and ceilings are closed, your options narrow and your costs climb. Both belong in the drawings, not in the snagging list.
