items set up by color

Yes you are.

You could do something like:

TableProducts: ProductID, ProductName, ProductOptionGroup

TableOptionGroups: GroupID, GroupName

TableOptions: OptionID, OptionGroupID, OptionName

and then your SQL statement to find the options for a particular product is like:

SELECT * FROM TableProducts INNER JOIN TableOptionGroups ON TableProducts.ProductOptionGroup = TableOptionGroups.GroupID INNER JOIN TableOptions ON TableOptions.OptionGroupID = TableOptionGroups.GroupID

Now you would have a table that would have the GroupName from the option groups table that would return something like "Colors" and would have rows for each of the options in that group like "White" and "Grey" or whatever.