That is an “owner’s representative” in the commercial world. Of course, there will be a fee, but they may spare you some ugly delays or surprise costs.
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What a great update to the space!
Are you on BHI by chance? We vacation there every year and have been seriously considering a vacation home to become our retirement home, but I’m semi concerned about quick access to medical care as we age. I’d love to know about your situation via DM if you do happen to be there 
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In addition to all the good advice already shared, plan for a healthy contingency budget and mentally prepare yourself for a longer time table for completion. IMO, it helps manage expectations if you are realistic about surprises and things going wrong. When it doesn’t it’s a happy surprise, but most times things do pop up and if you are prepared, it won’t feel as bad.
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Sadly, every project either takes longer or costs more than planned. Or both. This is especially true in a world where there is a dearth of skilled trades.
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We’ve been pretty lucky then! Our first big project in our current house (120 years old), came in 10% under budget because our contractor was sure that one of the walls we were taking out was load bearing prior to demo, and it turned out not to be. We also had put aside money for some electrical work that ended up not being needed because the previous owners had taken care of it. We did go over in time though because of a lost kitchen cabinet that threw off all the finishing work in the kitchen.
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I enjoy reading this thread as I love anything home DIY, home remodel, home interior design!
The only thing I can contribute - since I have never done a kitchen remodel and the only basic bath remodel was a couple decades ago is that knock a couple of those zeros off and this time last year we did a $1500 kitchen refresh on a house we hoped to sell soon. In our opinion it needed a complete reno but we weren’t willing to do that when we planned to sell. Instead we just painted, replaced outdated lighting, decluttered, polished antique hardware (including knobs and brackets and such and added some plants and a little bit of wall decor.
Must have done the trick because some of the comments on our house showings noted that the kitchen was a favorite space!
We won’t be so lucky in our new home that does have one bath that needs a complete remodel from it’s 80’s brass/fake marble, strip lighting state.
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In our first house we detested the avocado kitchen (including the dirt catching grooved vinyl flooring). Over time we replaced the floor, the fridge, the stove (used) and the countertops. Wallpapered it and the adjacent dining room - removed the hanging cabinet over the breakfast bar between them. Added a dishwasher too. Then for the biggest ever bang for the buck…. bought an $18 gallon of off-white paint and transformed the dark and glossy cabinets… admittedly it was a ton of work (mostly for my husband).
The one thing we said we would NEVER do ourselves again was to lay the new vinyl flooring. Due to fumes and our busy hands, we sent the baby to my mom’s. Good thing we did. Oh, that was such a marriage-buster of an afternoon trying to get it in place without sticking in wrong location. (Yes we did try the trick of laying sticks under to keep the contact cement from adhering prematurely. I just asked my husband if he remembered it, and LOL - the nightmare memories are still vivid for him too.
In this house we have hardwood kitchen floor, something I did not want but which has worked out ok. We have refinished it twice in the 30 years and do hope to keep it if we ever remodel.
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Yes, the house is on BHI. Feel free to DM with any questions…love the username, I can see the shoals from my back porch.
Don’t live there year round though…
That was a great investment. The old kitchen was OK, but the new one is really lovely. More functional too with the bigger, overhanging breakfast bar.
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New kitchen also appears to have more usable counter space. Great value for the money you spent!
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It also looks like your older kitchen layout had a higher counter with the lower one behind…and you made the whole thing the same lower height. Our neighbors did that and it increased the usable area and made the room seem much bigger!
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25 years ago we were outgrowing our house and searched to move. We realized we were just trading one set of issues for another. We liked our location and lot and decided to build a new house on our same lot. We tore down the old and built a much larger house and couldn’t have been happier. Things even back in those days that saved us a lot of money. My husband was the contractor and he was extremely strict on once a decision was made on something no changes were allowed. Change orders are costly. We also had most of the decisions made before we broke ground. This meant we had little downtime where we didn’t have someone working. When you go to the tile store have a budget in mind and don’t look at things above your budget. Also in the present time I’d make selections from items that are available if at all possible. If you are set on something and it’s backordered are you willing to sit with a half done room while you wait. Or would you rather you have all your items in place before you start demolition. Know that you need to be available to make decisions. We went out of town for a few days and the color they stained my wood ceiling and beams was not to my liking. I wanted to cry. 25 years later I’ve adjusted to them but if we had been here I would have took one look at the color and have them stop before doing multiple large rooms.
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That is what our entire kitchen remodel cost 8 years ago 
(Granted my carpenter spouse and good friend, also a carpenter who works for is a high-end remodeling company did it all).
Can’t help you out on current costs, but I can tell you how we saved money on a kitchen, which was part of very large scale renovation. We had a kitchen designer do the kitchen design and recommend cabinets, which carpenters from the design store installed. That was the only work these guys did, so they were experienced. We went to a stone quarry to buy our countertops and had folks from there do the installation. We bought materials directly from the quarry, the company that did the cabinetry, and an appliance store. The contractor didn’t do any of the work in the kitchen, which is where we saved money.
The kitchen still looks great. We got 20 years out of a Wolf gas range, an undercounter SubZero ice maker, and a Miele dishwasher. We replaced the gas stove two years ago with a Miele Induction range. We also purchased a new Miele dishwasher–repair would have been too costly. This was during the pandemic so our choices were limited and we ended up with a commercial grade Miele (got a good discount because we bought two appliances). We also replaced the ice-maker with another Sub-Zero. We still have a Sub-Zero fridge and freezer. I’m hoping they last a few more years. If you’d like pix, PM me and I’ll send you a link to a few photos (the designer still has two pictures on her website.)
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This is great advice. Thank you! I would love to see pics, and others probably would too. Post here if you’re comfortable with that!
I always tell people my ice maker is my favorite appliance. Never thought about an undercounter one. I love that idea.
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Here’s a photo of the kitchen. The icemaker is in the pantry. Basically, we (H and I) were the general contractors for the kitchen.
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Awesome kitchen.
Thank you. Your kitchen is stunning and it gives me a couple of ideas for my own kitchen. Is that a pantry behind the frig wall?
Yes–it’s a pantry. IMO the very best feature of the kitchen.
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All my husband wanted when we redid our kitchen was a skinny cabinet for the cookie trays/sheets. Not sure why… (He wasn’t a baker/use them a lot. And I don’t remember them being in the way of anything.)
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