Storing data of varying type.

I am creating a flexible web application in PHP and am a little confused as to how to structure my database. I am trying to store what I am calling "data models" (since I don't know the correct technical term!) in a database which will describe what something is made up of, as well as the data for that object.

For example:


Apple is made up of:
- One Textfield
- One Image
- Two Booleans


So in my database so far, I have two tables:


Data Models
- id
- name

Data Model Fields
- id
- model_id (relation to the data models table above)
- field_name
- type (which I'd enter something like text field / image / boolean)


These two tables map out my data model nicely, but now I need to store the actual physical data. So lets say I create a new Apple with the following data:


Apple
- Test
- image1.jpg
- true
- true


I need to store that data in my database somehow. Obviously the immediate solution is to create a new table which relates to the fields table and store all the data in a column typed as text... but I am worried of the performance hit my application will take because of this. For example, storing a 0 or a boolean in a column typed text is way overkill!

Can anyone help suggest a way in which I can structure my database to allow for a similar model based work flow?

Thanks much!

So how many different data models do you expect to have??

The obvious answer, if you say "not too many", is to simply use CREATE TABLE to create a table exactly designed to hold an "Apple" object.

If you say "thousands" then the problem is thornier.