A good lighting showroom should be able to help you with this - there will be lots of options and your choice is likely to depend on your anticipated use of the island or specific areas on it. Different bulbs and fittings will give different spread of light which, in turn, will be further affected by the height of the bulb above the working surface. As you won't want to be working in your own shadow you will most likely want a wide lighting angle so it will be a nearby bulb, not the one above you, which gives your task lighting. I'm not sure where you're based but Thompsons Lighting in Larne, Co Antrim (www.thompsonslighting.co.uk) are very helpful and knowledgeable.

I don't think it will be too busy, but it will be personal preference. Different people notice different things. Why not have them put in and then if he finds them too distracting then have them removed? He'll probably forget they're there after a week!

Hi. Yes, our first fix electrics are already in. Although, in theory, we should have been able to leave exact positioning until after the units were fitted (mid May), our ceiling is quite complicated: We have a hidden steel running down the centre of the room. So they have made special fixings in the ceiling, so that the pendants can still be fixed in the (hopefully!) best positions... We have one in the centre, then one equidistant between the centre and each end of the island. I think that should be ok. So they are about 750mm centres I think. They are slightly off centre, width ways, away from the hob side. Yes, too many big decisions. Not sure that I have made all of them right, but we are getting there. Current hold up are the bifolds, windows and doors. They are plaster boarding and plastering everything except for the reveals, but can’t finish or start the flooring until the windows are in. It’s giving me a bit longer to either about wall and kitchen cabinet colours 😱

Fair point about cleaning Lucy. We have a bubble chandelier in our bedroom and I read a suggestion that using a hairdryer on the cool setting is a way to get the dust of. Ours have not been up that long and so far dust isn’t an issue, I’ve used the dryer once and flicked a feather duster around them. Not sure how they would be in a kitchen, given the potential for grease in the air. When we hung ours I wore a pair of cotton gloves and will probably wear them to wipe each globe from time to time. But they are spectacular and every evening when I turn the on, I feel great joy!