Something like this, 2x13w (26w total) which I bet you could find at home depot for ~20$ would be 100% more efficient... add a power plug, and you're good to go. plus when you need new bulbs, you don't have to pay for the ballast because they are natively compact fluorescent bulbs, as opposed to the screw in ones which require an integrated ballast which is 50% of the cost of the bulb... so the replacement cost for these bulbs is probably half the cost. And usually in the twist in bulbs, the ballast is what dies, not the bulb. Especially with the cheaper ones.

i haven't been able to find that online :( the only "fluorescent reflectors" i come up with are the bulbs. I may just try to line the inside of the lampshade w some aluminum, since looks like that's what most of them are using? The reason i can't do an elaborate lighting scheme is that the studio is only so big. and there are two floor lamps already. If something's going to be lit up it might as well do the double job, right? ;) 'course i don't really need the extra light during the day... even if i'm home.

I have purchase the new florescent flood lamp bulbs from lowes and am trying them to supplement my windowsill garden. Hubby put them in one of those hollywood light fixtures (that goes in bathroom) pointed down at my little collection. I think they are just the curlyones with built in reflectors. What do you think?

so where does that go? i am if it's like those bathroom ones those would just be a cylinder like the recessed lights, right?

I was probably being a little over ambitious, and feel a bit bad... my opinions aren't practical usually. Just buy the screw in compact fluorescent bulbs, they'll be just fine. Everybody does it that way, it just bugs me personally in my lighting snootiness :-/

the higher wattage the better though! Remember CFL are about 4-5 times as efficient, so if you can cram 100watts of light of CFL, you're putting out ~8000-9000 lumens which comes out to be about 1000 fc at about 2 feet... ROUGHLY guesstimating... but that should be enough to grow pretty much anything that doesn't require full sun.

yeah that's what i'm slowly progressing toward. Still waiting the little converty thingies to come in (somebody already invented them of course! damn! my get-rich-quick scheme foiled again!) All of these are just supplementing my south window at this point, so catts and such should get happy