Access 2000 Creating database advice?

Question

As a project, I need to create a home inventory database. I have to include at least four tables. What would you suggest would be appropriate tables for this project to create relationships and what should the relationships be? [ex. Location (Room)? or category? ] I have 1 table for electronics, 1 for furniture, 1 for collections and 1 for jewelry. Access is a little frustrating for me and I am having a bit of difficulty planning this home inventory and getting it to make sense so some advice would be so appreciated.
To sum it up, I could use some suggestions on what would be good field names, tables and most of all.. what relationships I should be creating between tables. Thanks all!

Answer 1

It sounds as if you're on the right path. Your tables should be your major categories. Information such as location (rooms) should be columns within the tables. As an example, in electronics you might have a few TVs, DVD players, a PC, an iPod, stereo, laptop, and a couple of radios. If you have a TV, laptop, iPod and a stereo in your bedroom, they would be linked by both the category [table] and the room. But an items location can change (you move your iPod into the living room), but that won't change it from being an electronic device. So the category is the better choice for a table; the location is an attribute - and therefore it's better as a column.
Other column names within the table will vary based upon the items attributes. Continuing with electronics as an example, you might have a column for type (PC, laptop, iPod), manufacturer, serial number, date purchased, purchase price, warranty expiration date, model number, color ... each electronic piece has a TON of individual characteristics (aka "attributes") that could be included as columns. The same is true for jewelry (type, fake or real, composition, stones, color, weight...), furniture: type (sofa, loveseat, LR chair, DR chair, kitchen table, coffee table), color, composition (wood, leather, cloth), height, width, ...
Clothes would make a good fourth category for the same reason: lots of "attributes".

Answer 2

ID #, Item, Category, Description, Manufacturer, Model, Condition, Location, Owner, Acquired Date, Purchase Price, Current Value, Retired Date, Comments, Attachment (For photo of item)