Alright, I see what your saying now. At first I was going to say some nested JPanels, but I think it's too good of a project to go down that road. Since you need a lot of control as to were these components go, I would suggest using the setBounds() method. It lets you place components anywere you like; it even lets you decide the width and the height of the component. Of course it will take some trial and error to get the components were you like! Anyways, the project looks great so far. I can tell you've spent a lot of time on it. Keep up the good work.

Here is a sample of the setbounds:


The setbounds looks like this:
setBounds(int X, int Y, int width, int height);


Now, with the setbounds, you DON'T use a layout manager. You simply set the layout manager to null.
setLayout(null);

It's important to remember that.