Template from ThemeForest are what I use to add some polish; plenty of people will criticise for using themes, but in my opinion, and coming from someone with zero design skills, they get you in a better place right from the start :)

So, most of my sites are written using Kohana and a couple of themes from ThemeForest - one for the sales side, and one for the admin area itself.

Edit: and really, that's nowhere near to being a stupid question - I only found out about options like TF when a friend told me a few months ago :)