I Spent $32K Building a Home Gym; the Items I Saved on and Splurged on

• Software engineer Antonio Perez, 47, spent the past year and $32,000 building his dream at-home gym.
• After his wife became wheelchair-bound, he felt guilty leaving daily for the gym.
• The most expensive piece of equipment was a $3,600 AssaultRunner Pro treadmill he bought for his daughter.

This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with software engineer Antonio Perez, 47, who lives in Bath Township, Ohio, about 30 minutes south of Cleveland. Over the past year, he turned his house’s woodworking shop into a basement gym. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

I bought the five-bedroom house for $485,000 in 2019. The previous owner used the basement as a woodworking shop, but I knew we would transform it into something different.

Originally, I thought the basement might be a home movie theater and I would just use one of the bedrooms for my exercise equipment. While researching home theaters, though, I realized we probably wouldn’t use it enough to justify the cost.

My wife developed Multiple System Atrophy, or MSA, in 2020, a neurological disease similar to ALS. By 2023, she was wheelchair-bound and it was difficult for her to leave the house. I started to feel guilty every time I left for the gym. What if she needed help going to the bathroom and no one was there?

The gym was also for the whole family. I’m trying to get back into shape personally. I weightlift around three to five days a week when I’m focused on a program. I also have two daughters, 19 and 17, who have played lacrosse, tennis, soccer, and basketball over the years.

My two-month project turned into a yearlong odyssey

Like all home improvement projects, you think it’s going to be faster than it is. I originally thought it’d be a two- to three-month project. I started in February 2024 and only felt like everything was completed last week — over a year later.

I didn’t set a specific budget. I knew I wanted it to be nice, and I kind of did it on the fly. If I saw a piece of equipment that I wanted and I could afford it, I bought it. In total, the project cost me around $32,000.

The flooring took a lot of research. I had to strip out all the old linoleum glue, which required renting a sander. I knew I wanted a material that mimicked professional gyms, so I went to Home Depot and got samples. I wanted it to feel dense when you stepped on it.

While researching home theaters, I saw a really cool speaker system. It was dark black, but you could see the wood grain coming through. I tried to replicate that for the walls, and I think I nailed it.

The hardest part was spray-painting the ceiling. I used 10 gallons of paint, which means I held up that extension wand for hours and hours.

I taught myself how to do some of the DIY work and learned to be patient

The lighting was surprisingly easy, especially since it was my first electrical job ever. I used YouTube videos to learn how, but it turned out to be a simple project to run together a couple of lines and put together junction boxes. I settled on the hexagonal shape after seeing pictures of some other home gyms. The lights were relatively cheap, only around $500, and I didn’t even use all the ones I picked up.

I wanted it to be extra bright since the floors and walls were so dark. My daughter thinks its too bright, but I think it’s perfect.

If you’re attempting to build a home gym on your own, just know it takes time. Life gets in the way. You’ll put down one coat of paint and realize you need another, but then your family needs you, so you don’t go back for another month or two.

I bought some equipment secondhand and splurged on other pieces

I knew I wanted a really solid power rack system, so I started with that. There were options for 80″ or 92″ of height. Initially, I was worried I would hit my head on the ceiling doing pull-ups with the 92″, so I got the 80″. But when I set it up, it was too small for me to do overhead lifts. So now I have two racks.

I used Facebook Marketplace for some of the equipment, like two rep bars, a trap bar, and a powerlifting bench for the glutes and hamstrings. For really big equipment though, I didn’t want to skimp. I wanted to make sure it was reliable.

The hardest piece of equipment to pull the trigger on was the AssaultRunner Pro treadmill. It was about $3,600, which I thought was just way too much for a treadmill. Nothing powers up like it — you can get to the speed you want instantly. My daughter really wanted it for interval training, so I got it.

For my daughter’s high school graduation party last year, I bought a whole bunch of cutouts of her in action. Now, they decorate the gym. I told the younger one that we’ll add her photos to the collection next year.