Home is normally an arbitrarily set position, on my excello mills I set the home at Z all the way up posn. X table moved to the extreme left, and Y moves the table to the extreme front, With Mills, I set the homing routine up to always home the Z axis first to get the spindle out of the way, and then home the X & Y simultaneously. Obviously overtravel limits should be set at the extreme ends of travel for all the axis. Just before the maximum phisical limit is reached.
Al
The axis convention for milling machine from the view of the spindle is Z axis down is Z- Zaxis up is Z+ , X- to the left X+ to the right , Y + towards the machine and Y- forward away from the machine., remember that the X & Y axis table will have to move in the opposite direction as the spindle is usually stationary in the X&Y on a mill.