If you do put the equipment in a cabinet or closet you will need a way of controlling them. Furnlite makes an infared repeater that controls six pieces of equipment. The infared eye is very small. Only requires a 1/2" hole. I don't think they show on their website yet. Sligh Furniture, http://www.sligh.com/sligh.php, uses them on their entertainment pieces. Here is a link that might be useful: FurnLite

I have an old small TV with a built-in antenna in my kitchen. Just bought a digital converter box and it's small and just sits on top of the TV - but you probably couldn't do that with a newer flat screen TV. If you can live without the premium channels in your kitchen, you MIGHT be able to feed the cable directly into your TV without the cable box and use the tuner on the TV to select channels. But that would really depend on both the particular cable company and your TV - these days not all cable companies still provide an analog feed and newer TVs don't have an analog tuner.

Hi aboyd4, we will put the cable box at the corner where the cable outlet is. the contractor cut the dry wall to hide all the cables inside. also added an outlet on the wall (below the mount to the right) this way your TV cable doesn't need to go through the wall so when you change TV no need to cut the wall open again

With the recessed shelf under the TV, it seems like your TV will be mounted very high. I would buy a freestanding media console and put it on the wall where your wife wants to put the box. Mount the TV on that wall above the media console on a full swivel motion mount. You can pull it out and angle in the room when you're watching TV. The TV can also be mounted at a more appropriate height for comfortable viewing.