How to prioritize home gym equipment.

You don't want to make an investment in a gym, and never use it so I am about to offer the best home gym advice you have ever read.
Let me just get to the point. You're already training someplace else now, right?  Why not leverage this?

The way I went about creating my home gym, when I first started putting the gym together, was I knew what things I could do at the gym and what things I couldn't.

I was training at Westside Barbell  at the time, so they had basically everything that I needed but toward the end of my time there it was becoming harder and harder to make the four main sessions per week plus the extra training sessions I was doing. In some cases, due to work I would get the main things done, that needed to be done, and then finish the rest at work later.

What I didn't want to do was to drive the 30, 40 minutes to be able to do extra workouts, which I did pretty frequently. That included things such as sled dragging, glute-ham raises, reverse hypers, some lat work, band exercises and other small recovery type sessions.

The first piece of home gym equipment that I purchased was not a rack. It wasn't dumbbells. It wasn't even a barbell. The first piece of home gym equipment that I purchased was a glute-ham raise, because the hamstrings were my weakest point. I had a sled, so I guess the first piece was the sled, but somebody gave me a sled. I really don't consider that. It was a glute-ham. That way, I was able to do the glute-ham raises 8 times per week, and I didn't have to run all the way back to the gym to do it.  A few sets of GHR, Band leg curls and ankle weight leg curls and I was able to jump my hamstring volume though the roof  and never have to leave home.

The second piece I got was a reverse hyper. The came (years) later down the line, and I really didn't even use it that much, because all that work was being done in the gym. When people are putting together a home gym, and they're currently already training someplace that they're satisfied with, there is no need to get everything right away unless you really have to. If that's this case I would be writing a completely different answer.

The priority of this needs to be based upon your training needs, not your gym needs or your personal home gym needs.

THREE HUGE QUESTIONS

"What things are you not able to do in the gym now that you would like to be able to do?" Would be the first question I'd be asking.

 
The second question I would be asking, "What things would you like to be able to do as extra workouts or on other days?"

The third question I would be, "Are you doing training sessions now as extra workouts?" Say you're going to the gym just to do lat work, that if you had a lat machine with a cable low row, you wouldn't have to make that trip in there anymore. It could all be done at home.

Those would be the three questions I would ask, as far as priority goes, because those three are going to advance you as a lifter.

That's the most important thing, is to advance you as a lifter, if that's what you're in this for, is to be a stronger lifter. If you're in it just to get out of the gym, because you're suck of the fucking commercial gym, and you want to start your own gym, most definitely, yes. A rack is going to be first, a barbell, plates, the basics. That's simple. There's tons of articles on that, and you don't even need to ask that. You know that.  This is about how you can become better NOW with a home gym. 

This is a  little bit different answer than I think people  were expecting, but I'm not going to sit here and bullshit people . I'd rather have you make the progress that you want to make, and in turn, later down the line, you will have the whole gym in your house, but let's worry about making progress all the way through, and being able to do it on the budget that you can work within, instead of just blowing your nut and maybe finding out that you're not getting in the training at home that you really wish you would have, had you stayed in the gym.

Obviously there are many way to build out a gym and here at elitefts.com we have helped people do them all. From items stuck in a milk crate in their closest, garage gyms, warehouse gyms, private training centers, high school & university weight rooms, fitness centers, military bases,  mom and pop gyms, commercial gyms, all the way back to items that get stored in the trunk of a car. If training is one of their top four priorities there is a good chance we have crossed paths and helped suit their needs.

The take away from all this is that last sentence. When setting up a home gym look for what best fits YOUR current needs. Not what you want to have, wish to have or would have liked to have ten years ago. Get what you need today so you can become better tomorrow