They will use more material than you measure for , they dont look for little pieces they roll thru quickly 

You discussed decor with them and their vision for how they'd decorate and helped them measure the rooms so they could pre-plan their furniture.And, still, boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff.  

then, take both suckers and the frame measurement of the window you need to a dealer and they can reorder what you require.

Is there a standard metric that measures lost revenue due to a room being down for maintenance?  

I believe in making a deal as conservative and stringent as possible.

It's a great measure of how well am I using MY MONEY vs OPM.I would not create the issues of out-of-state investing for the intent of improving CoC by 1% as you'll toss that gain away with other expenses and reduce the YE profit.There are lots of variables to maximizing the yield of REI.

One site that can give you a general idea of costs for your area is www.homewyse.comAdditionally, as concerns standards of quality, that is almost entirely affected by solid communication: you and your husband being perfectly clear to the contractor as to what you expect, as well as he or she asking questions, taking good notes and measurements, writing a thorough estimate, and a detailed contract (min. 10-12 pages in my opinion).

It will be slow, but if I target specific things I can measure results.  

I like to break them down into Taxes (Actual), Insurance (Actual), Maintenance (12%), Management (10%), and Capital Improvement Reserves (7%) to find your un-leveraged return as a measure of the strength of the deal, then add in mortgage expense to find your Cash-on-Cash return.

Stop by home Depot with your  Kitchen measurement (from the 3 bedroom) and price out a kitchen there.