Thanks a ton for the pointers!

Cables: you can spend infinite money on your cables. On a budget, my recommendation is 12ga speaker wire from Home Depot and "gold" RCA cables from Radio Shack.

That's a suprise to me, but a good one! Yeah, RS's gold stuff seemed pretty good. I simply have the $4, incredibly thin crap stuff. I'm sure it's terrible. I've also only got the bottom end RS speaker cable, so I'll try that Home Depot stuff. I'll also try them about the cabinets.

Surge protectors: I have a Monster surge protector that came with a "if it gets zapped, we pay for it" guarantee.

Cool. I was definitely looking at the Monster surge protectors. Those prices are real tough, though. Ouch!

TiVo (telephone) connection: I just have a really long run of regular phone wire. But, if you read the TivoCommunity site, it seems that noisy phone jacks have a habit of frying the modem inside the TiVo. Maybe you need a better wireless thing?

I might need a better wireless phone jack, but I got the one they specified. One thought, though. I usually have an RF video sender hooked up to my computer an TV, sending information the same direction, almost in the same locations. Could they be interfering? I can't be quite sure, but I seem to recall changing the frequency on the video sender around the time that the Tivo connection crapped out, but I can't remember.

Simply a long phone cord won't do. The nearest phone jack is in another room on the furthest wall from the Tivo. I would be able to snake a 100' cord to it, but it would be painfully obvious, unless thre were some good solution to hiding cords that are snaked along a basboard, around door moldings, and over doorways.

Cabinets: ....

Thanks for the link! Those look pretty good, and I'll consider them. Custom or building myself is looking really good right now, as nobody seems to have anything that I'm looking for. I'll look in Home Depot, but I might end up buying some stuff there to build it instead of buy it.

Thanks for the pointers, I really appreciated it. You saved me some serious dough in some places (although it looks like it's rising in others )