Pamela, if you think back to when you were in school you would (I assume, I didn't go through the American school system) have learned about photosynthesis, the way plants use light to make their food. The light they need is in specific wavelengths. So they need enough light in the right wavelengths to grow and even stay alive. It's even more critical if you want them to flower because with many plants that not only depends on the brightness of the light but also the number of hours of light per day. There are also "sun" plants and "shade" plants. Sun plants need much brighter light while shade plants need less and can be damaged by too much light.
So what I'm trying to say here is that the amount of light is critical to the types of plants you can winter indoors. It is possible to rig up a shop light fitting on a table but if you need to have the plants scattered around on shelves etc. because of limited floor space that isn't going to help.
