By Anne McKenna, KES Lighting & Home. Last updated 29 September 2026.
The clocks go back on Sunday 25 October. From that evening it is dark in Warwickshire and the Midlands by half past five, and most houses meet it with exactly the lighting they had in June: one ceiling fitting per room, a bulb that is the wrong colour, and a switch by the door that gives you everything or nothing. You do not need a designer to fix this. You need forty minutes, a dark evening, and a notebook.
Here is the audit. Walk the house one room at a time, after dark, with only the lights you normally use switched on. In each room, note where you are straining, where you are squinting, and where the room simply looks flat. Then read the room below and do the first job on the list. The second job can wait for payday. That is the whole method, and it works because it starts from how you actually live in the house rather than from a catalogue.
Three things to check in every room before you start
The colour of the bulb. Look at the number on the box or the bulb itself. 2700K is warm white and belongs in every room you sit in. 3000K is for a kitchen worktop or a bathroom mirror. 4000K, sold as 'cool white', is for the garage. If the living room is on 4000K, stop reading and change it tonight, because nothing else you do will make that room feel like a home. The full room-by-room Kelvin guide is here.
The number of light sources. Count them. A room with one is a room lit for finding your keys, not for living in. Three is the minimum for a room you spend evenings in: something overhead, something at seated height, and something that picks out one thing you like looking at. How to layer lighting in a room covers the theory. The audit is where you apply it.
Whether you can turn it down. A room that can only be bright is half a lighting scheme. If the main light is on a plain switch, a dimmer is the cheapest improvement in this whole article, provided the bulbs are dimmable and the dimmer is the right type for LED. Why some LEDs will not dim, and how to buy ones that do.
The hall and the front door
This is the room that meets people, and in October it meets them in the dark. Stand outside your own front door at six o'clock and look at it honestly. If there is no light on the door, or the light is a bare bulkhead that was there when you moved in, this is the first job in the whole house. A lantern with a PIR sensor lights the step when someone arrives and switches itself off, which is what most people actually want from a porch light.
Change first: the outside light by the door. Can wait: the hall pendant, provided it is on a warm bulb. A hall does not need to be bright. It needs to be welcoming, which is a lower, warmer light than most people fit.
The living room
Sit where you sit in the evening and switch on what you normally switch on. If that is one ceiling light, the room is lit from above like an office, everybody's face is in shadow, and the corners are dead. The living room is the room where layering matters most and where a single fitting fails hardest. Plenty of the best living rooms have no ceiling light on at all after dark, just two lamps and a pair of wall lights.
Most living rooms need nothing new overhead in October. They need light where you actually sit. Start with a table lamp at each end of the sofa, then put a floor lamp beside the chair you read in. Check the dimensions before you buy. The most common lamp problem we see is simply getting the scale wrong for the table or the room.
Change first: add a lamp at each end of the seating, on 2700K bulbs. Two lamps transform a living room more than any ceiling fitting ever will, and they cost less. Can wait: wall lights, which need an electrician. When you do fit them, put them at 1.5 to 1.7 metres from the floor and keep pairs symmetrical. The best wall lights for a living room goes through the options.
The kitchen
The kitchen is the one room that is allowed to be brighter, and it is also the room most often lit wrongly. The usual fault is a grid of downlights on 4000K that makes a new kitchen look like a showroom at eight in the evening. The second fault is island pendants with no dimmer, so the same light that is right for chopping onions is on while you eat.
Change first: the bulbs. 3000K over the worktop, 2700K over the table or the island seating, and never 4000K anywhere people eat. Can wait: a dimmer for the island pendants, which is a small job for an electrician and makes the kitchen usable as a room rather than a workshop. If you have an open-plan kitchen diner, this is how to light the two halves differently.
The dining room
Sit at the table. If the light over it is too high, the table is lit from the ceiling and the people round it are not. If it is too bright, nobody lingers. A dining table wants a fitting hung low enough to make a pool of light on the table, roughly 70 to 90 centimetres above it, on a dimmer, on warm bulbs. That is the entire recipe and it has not changed in a hundred years.
Change first: the height. Most pendants are hung too high because the fitter did not want to be blamed for someone banging their head. Over a table nobody walks under it. How high to hang a chandelier over a dining table. Can wait: replacing the fitting itself, if the one you have is the right size and merely dull.
The bedroom
Lie on the bed and switch on the main light. If that is what you read by, you are reading under the worst light in the house. A bedroom should almost never use its ceiling light after dark. It needs a light on each side of the bed that can be switched from the bed, and a ceiling fitting that is there for making the bed and finding socks.
Change first: bedside lighting. A switched reading light on the wall keeps the bedside table clear and puts the light where the book is. A table lamp does the same job with no electrician. The best bedside lamps for reading is the buying guide. Can wait: everything else, as long as the bulbs are 2700K. A bedroom on cool white is a bedroom nobody sleeps well in.
The bathroom
Stand at the basin and look in the mirror. If the only light is a downlight above your head, your face is lit from the top, every shadow is in the wrong place, and shaving or make-up is guesswork. Light at the mirror, from the sides or from above the mirror itself, is the one job in the bathroom that actually changes the room.
Change first: a mirror light, rated for the zone it sits in, on 3000K. Can wait: the ceiling fitting. Bathroom lighting has rules about where a fitting can go and how well sealed it must be, so this is one for an electrician rather than a Saturday. Bathroom lighting, properly explained.
The stairs and landing
Go up the stairs in the dark with the landing light off. This is the one place in the house where lighting is a safety matter rather than a taste one, and it is the place most houses light with a single bulb at the top. You should be able to switch the stairs on from both ends, and the light should fall on the treads, not just on the ceiling.
Change first: the bulb, if it is dim or cool. Can wait: a proper stairwell pendant, which is a bigger purchase and a scaffold-tower job, but which turns a tall stairwell from a shaft into the best-looking space in the house. Do not put it off past Christmas if you have guests coming.
Outside
Look out of the back window after dark. If the garden vanishes into a black rectangle at five o'clock, the house feels smaller for the whole of the winter. One wall light on the back of the house, on a warm bulb, on a sensor or a switch inside, gives the garden back to you. It does not need to be bright and it should not be cool white, which makes a patio look like a car park.
Change first: one wall light at the back door. Can wait: path and garden lighting, which is a spring job. Anything outside needs the right IP rating for where it sits, so check the product page rather than guessing.
The order to do it in, if you only do three things
First, change every bulb that is the wrong colour. It is the cheapest job and the biggest difference. Second, put a lamp at each end of the sofa. Third, light the front door. Everything else in this article is an improvement. Those three are the difference between a house that looks right at night and one that does not, and you can have all three done before the clocks go back.
Where to start: the four autumn edits
- Table lamps. Start at seated height. A pair at either end of the sofa is often the quickest change you can make to a living room.
- Floor lamps. Put one beside the chair you actually use, rather than in the empty corner where it looks neat but lights nothing.
- Pendants. Use the ceiling fitting where you need general light or a focal point, then let the lamps do the evening work.
- Wall lights. Useful where there is no surface for a lamp, particularly beside seating and pictures.
Frequently asked questions
When do the clocks go back in 2026?
British Summer Time ends on Sunday 25 October 2026, when the clocks go back one hour. From that evening it is dark in Warwickshire and the Midlands by half past five.
What is the cheapest way to improve the lighting in a house?
Change every bulb that is the wrong colour temperature. Use 2700K warm white in every room you sit in, 3000K over a kitchen worktop or bathroom mirror, and keep 4000K cool white out of living spaces. It costs a bulb per fitting and changes how the whole house looks at night.
How many lights should a living room have?
At least three sources: something overhead, something at seated height such as a table lamp or wall light, and something that picks out a picture or an alcove. Two lamps at either end of the seating make more difference than any single ceiling fitting.
How do you make a north-facing room feel warmer with lighting?
Start with warm white light around 2700K and put it at more than one height. Table lamps, floor lamps and wall lights soften the grey daylight a north-facing room gets during the day and stop one bright ceiling fitting taking over at night. Warm-toned shades and finishes help, but the bulb colour comes first.
