I'm on my first grow as well, and like you, i used an assortment of bulbs that i had available and let em grow 'in the open' on my counter. They struggled horribly
Make some kind of enclosure with reflective material, it increases the efficiency of the bulbs since all that light is bouncing around in a small space. It gives your plants more opportunities to catch the light, instead of having the light bounce through a large room and be absorbed by the walls.
Boxing my plants did wonders.
There are also grow tents you can buy for about 100 bucks on ebay if you have money to spend. Otherwise i made my box out of a large cardboard box! I think a broken deep freezer would work perfectly. It would also be 'stealthy'.