I strongly endorse this notion of equipping your own laboratory for your experiments. Learning through doing is always more durable than learning through reading only.

While the author is looking at learning about and perfecting their skills as an administrator of networked computer systems there are other "kinds" of laboratories that people set up.

Mine, and one I'm more familiar with, are electronics labs. If you're going to be learning about circuits and such it helps to have the basic kit at hand. Similarly for people doing robotics, having a 3D printer in their home lab is essential these days. Nearly everything you might do in a home laboratory will involve some sort of data processing so the ideas by the author are great for creating the lab's "IT infrastructure."

In California it also makes it easier to defend the "I built this technology my own gear (picture/description of lab) so you don't own it." But that may be unique to California.