Newbee Access DB structure help

Hi All,
I am doing a project to get started on Access. I am a tinkerer, and have a
lab and garage full of storage boxes, component chests, tackle boxes, plastic
tubs and such, on shelves, in cupboards and on the floor. Each receptacle, be
it a large plastic tub, or a single drawer of a 6x5 component chest has
components in it. There may be more than one, and more than one type of
component in each receptacle. Each receptacle has a location (room), position
(shelf, floor) and a unique id. A receptacle is always singular, but may be a
single carton, or a drawer within a multi-drawer chest. There may be several
chests, some with 5x6 drawers, some with 8x4 drawers etc.
Components each have attributes: Description, part #, genre, image,
datasheet, # on hand, etc. A single type of component may have 1, 2 or more
genres (OPTO, Discrete, Semiconductor). There may be the same type of
component in different receptacles (Part of the reason for this project is to
gather them and consolidate them!)
Thus far, I have created tables for ReceptacleType (18 possibilities),
Location(4 possible rooms), Component (20 fields incl location, receptacle
type, #on hand, but mainly just attributes etc). I also have a Receptacle
table which is the uniqueid for every single receptacle, its type, location,
and component list field.
I am struggling in several areas:
1) I am not sure how to build the relationships, such that some receptacles
have 'parents' or hierarchy and some do not. For example, a drawer within a
chest of 20, or a single large cardboard box.
2) How to construct forms that will change 'downstream' fields, dependent
upon a certain choice made in a combo box. Say if I select a chest drawer, a
field will open to describe which chest
3) How to set up forms for the most efficient data entry.

I envisage visiting each receptacle with my laptop, entering the list of
components in it (briefly), the location of the receptacle, physically
labelling the receptacle with the uniqueid sticker, then moving to the next.
Once that is done, I would go to each component, and flesh out the data for
the attributes as necessary. Later on, it would be great to report all the
'OPTO' components, so I could gather them all up and consolidate them into
grouped, or adjacent receptacles, updating the db as I did so.
An important attribute for each component would be a synonym field, so I
could query LED, led, LEDS, Light Emitting Diodes and find all of the
relevant records.

Frankly, any advice, especially on where to begin, would be most appreciated!

Thanks in anticipation,
Roy.