We have some tips for the do-it-yourselfer and what they can do to make the home shop more user-friendly. And to that end, we’ve come to Statesville, North Carolina and Ray Evernham of Evernham Motorsports. Ray, welcome to Goss’ Garage.

EVERNHAM: Thank you for inviting me.

GOSS: Now, your shop is absolutely gorgeous. What could the do-it-yourselfer take away from this for the home shop?

EVERNHAM: Well, we appreciate you saying that. It’s something that we’re very proud of here at our facility in Statesville. But the first thing we did when we built the new shop was look at what we were trying to accomplish. In our world it’s building and maintaining race cars. So I think the do-it-yourselfer can say what do they want to accomplish in their garage? Are they going to work on their car? Is it going to be a woodworking shop? What do they want to do? And then look at their space. Now, we got to build the space that we wanted. Sometimes you’re limited to space in your home already. So we try and make things dual-purpose, benches, tables, racking, things that can do more than one job, again to condense space. Another thing is we had to look at exactly what types of tools we wanted to put in that garage and equipment. So again, if you analyze what jobs you want to do, it will tell you what you need in your garage. And cleanliness is very important to us, an uncluttered work area, which again goes along with space saving, because you’re going to do a much better job if you’re not cluttered and you’re going to be in a better mood. You won’t be so frustrated all the time if you’re tripping over things.

GOSS: Absolutely. Now, I notice you’ve spent obviously a lot of money and a lot of effort in making the lighting really good in here.

EVERNHAM: Well, lighting is important. If you’re going to do a good job on something, you’ve got to be able to see what you’re doing. And as I said, when you get old like me, sometimes that’s a little bit harder, so you want to have good lighting. Some of the work that we do is very minute, under hood, so it’s got to be lit well. And again it’s a big safety issue. We really want to make sure that nobody gets hurt in our area, and if you can see what you’re doing, chances are you’re not going to skin a knuckle or trip over something.

GOSS: Now, that brings up the floor. Your floor is very shiny. It’s light colored, it reflects light. I take it that’s on purpose.

EVERNHAM: Yeah, it really is. And the floor is actually kind of a cheaper way of getting all of the efficiency that you can out of your lighting. A little bit brighter floor will help brighten up the whole garage. Again if you drop something, easier to find. Spill something on the floor, easier maybe to clean up and not fall over. And again, a big safety issue for us. Plus it looks good, and if your garage looks good and you feel good about it, you’re going to have a lot more fun.

GOSS: Ray, thank you so much for joining us.

EVERNHAM: Thank you for having me.


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