Structure of Catalog Site using Custom Post Types & Custom Taxonomies

Hi, I’m really struggling with how I should go about the structure of an Antiques Catalog site in terms of Template files and Permalinks. I’m keen to use Custom Posts & Taxonomies for lots of reasons.

I have a prety good grasp on both of these….

I’ve set up :

2 custom taxonomies “antique_silverware” & “antique_jewellery”
Each taxomony has a dozen or so terms …. “earrings”, “cuff-links” etc. (although they are only a single level I’ve set them as heirarchical so the Admin provides checkboxes and not tags… just for client Admin useability)

I’ve rewritten the slug to “antique-silverware” & “antique-jewellery”

2 custom post types “silverware_stock” & “jewellery_stock” with each assigned to use their relevant taxonomy.

Here is what I am trying to achieve.

Its’s a basic 3 level drill down site….

mysite.com/taxonomy/term/postname

or

mysite.com/antique-jewellery/
mysite.com/antique-jewellery/earrings/
mysite.com/antique-jewellery/earrings/a-pair-of-earings/

I don’t want to set up pages for each term for obvious reasons.

However Level 1 are pages (one for each taxonomy) with the same slug as the taxonomy, but when I drill down to Level 2 I get mysite.com/jewellery_stock/earrings/ which is the post_type/post_name … I tried setting the same slug for the post type as the taxomony but WP didn’t seem to like that!

So I guess I have 3 questions

1. What template files should I be targeting at each level of the site

2. Can I avoid using the custom post type slug in the permalink structure as it seems to just confuse the issue (and me).

3. Is the key to all this in permalink rewrites or in the templates I use … or both?

I’ve spent days trawling the web and although there is lots of posts that tackle the subject, none really answer these basic questions.

Many thanks in advance from anyone who can push me in the right direction (or maybe even explain the path I should take)