In order to give the best possible answers, you first must tell us a few things:

1. What is your budget?
2. How many channels do you want to record at once, right now?
3. How many channels might you want to record at once, in the future?
4. What sorts of music are you recording and what are your goals?
5. Do you have a room? What is it like?
6. Do you have monitors? Microphones? Cables, stands, and headphones?

All of these things (and more) are important, even if they don't seem to be right now.
They'll be especially important when you figure your budget.

Let me give a scenario I give to bands:

Man gets into cab. Cabbie asks, "Where to?" Man says, "A hotel." The cabbie drives off and takes him to a cruddy hotel. When he sees it, the man says, "What is this place?" The cabbie shrugs and says, "You said take me to a hotel - you didn't give me any other instructions, so I took you to the closest, cheapest one - I assume you didn't care." The man then has the driver take him to a nice hotel on the other side of town, and ends up paying more for the cab ride than he would have for the hotel.

Not trying to be condescending - just understand how important information is, even if it doesn't seem important.

Help us help you plan.

Wow. I'm really sorry to reply to this so late. I've had some things going on. Anyway...

Thank you for your input. I'll do my best to be more specific. The room I'm in is fairly small. I share it with some other musicians. However, I'm about to move to a new space. I'm sure of the specifics on that.

My budget is low. I always end up buying what I need/want, it just tends to take more time. I hate to give a totally obscure answer, but that's the best I can do. I have some savings and just got a security deposit on my last place, so I have a couple thousand in savings.

Channels. I would like to be able to record drums. So, I'll need a minimum of 6 or 7 channels recording at once. In the future I'd like to be able to record more. I'd like to be able to mic my drum kit, at least 2 guitar amps, and a bass amp. So, now I really need a minimum of 6 channels. Ideally, I'd like to have 10-12 channels.

I have a couple of odds and ends as far as mics and boom stands. I have 3 Shure SM57s, 1 Shure Beta 52. I have 2 mic boom stands. I have no headphones or monitors. If you check out my profile, you'll see what I'm working with more specifically as far as my gear setup for guitar and drums.

The music that I've been making/hoping to start tracking for soon is somewhat of a post-rock sound. Most of it is fairly dynamic and somewhat slow paced. My goal sound-wise is to build really beautiful and warm textures. I'd like to perceive a lot of space and dimensionality in whatever is recorded.

Please please please ask more questions if more info is needed. I'm eager to learn more and I'm very eager to get a setup built up for recording.

You might want to check out the Focusrite Saffire Pro 40. Usually costs around 500 bucks, but you could probably get a good deal on eBay or something. It has 8 Focusrite pre-amps, then another 12 ADAT ins, and 20 ADAT outs. You would get 8 fully fuctional inputs right away, then you could add preamps to the other ins. If you want something really professional, you would want something with nicer AD/DA converters. Check out Apogee, RME, or MOTU interfaces. They get pricey, but thats the biz.