Lighting Question

I am sure this has been asked a million times and I have already tried searching this forum with no luck.

I am just starting out and I do not even have a studio. I am in the very early learning stages. I mostly take pics of my daughter and friends and family. My house does not get very good natural light no matter what time of day and being winter I can not get outside.

So, the only biggest place for me to shoot at is in my kitchen/dining room but I have two ceiling lights that are florecent so they do not work. I really need to work on learning the light and exposure but in the meantime to help me out I was wanting to add light and I do not have the money for studio lights and i know I am not ready for them. I thought I had read somewhere that you could just buy some kind of light like a work light from home depot and then make a softbox around it (I have instructions for the softbox) If this is possible, what kind of lights should I buy Just something simple to give off a natural looking light. I am also going to get some foamcore for a reflector. I would like to spend as little as money as possible until I get the hang of stuff but I just can not do natural light right now I have even tried uping my ISO all the way but then ofcourse I get real grain. I can use my on camera flash but then the photos look to flat. Okay so now I am rambling.

Long story short Can I just buy some regular lights from home depot and use them for now?

Thanks if you made it this far.

Yes, you can is the answer. I used to use a pair of halogen lights from Sears for product shots. You'll want some sort of softbox.umbrella or something to diffuse the light.

I have a Nikon system, and one of the things I could do is using my on camera flash fire a flash that is mounted somewhere else. That is something you could look into more as you learn more.

The great thing about using hot lights is you'll see what you're going to get. Your subject may/may not get warm from sitting under the lights :)