Configure TC and Airport Extreme Base Stations with different channels

Question

I had to do some serious workarounds to use the Airport Extreme Base Stations as an access point with the same wireless network name primarily due to channel overlap.  I thought I would post my results here since I didnt' find a good article online.
Also, I found the Snow Leopard verison (5.4.2) of the Airport Setup Utility far superior to Lion's Airport Utility (6.x) in terms of advanced setup. 
Setup is a 3 flloor house where the 3 wired network locations have wireless overlap.  The problem was that the access points would not hand off the wireless signal because the channels for each airport/TC were automatically set to the same channel.  In non-apple setups, this is how you force a wireless client to switch access points (since the wireless software on your client/mac/windows can detect which access point is stronger and moves to the alternate channel.
Using apple's "Extend this wireless network" option removes any ability to manually configure wireless channels.  I am writing this from memory, so feel free to ask questions and I will track this topic:
Procedure
Setup time capsule as your base station.  Do all the setup for your wireless and guest networks.  Manually configure the network and change the wireless channel to a specific channel for a/b/g networks (e.g., 3) and n networks (e.g, 167).
Plug your first airport extreme/access point into your wired network.  Do not plug it into the "internet" ethernet plug, use one of the 3 ethernet switch locations
Use the airport utility to first configure it to "extend" your wired network. 
Then, go in and reconfigure it manually in the airport utility.  Choose the option to setup a "new network" and name the network the same as the TC wireless network name, security, etc.
Change the channel from "auto" to a different channel than the TC (e.g., 6 and 137). 
Now go to the top tab and click on the "internet" icon
Go to the DHCP tab and change it to "bridge mode."  This will tell the AE to not give out IP addresses (the TC will do this for you).  If you get an error that the IP ranges conflict, you have not done this
Note that if you have a guest network setup, you will need to set this up on the AE as well. 
Now test your airport setup.  Take your client (macbook, iOS device) and connect to your network.  Move to a spot near the TC and pull up a web page.  Keep an eye on the signal strength and beginv moving toward the AE.  Refresh the page as you move around.  You should at some point see the signal strength increase.  Refresh your page again.  You should be now connected to to the AE.  I have found that Macbooks do a better job than iOS devices because you get an extra signal bar to measure strength, and they have larger antennas which allows you to better measure problems with handoff
Another test you can do is to start backing up on your TC and then test the move.  The handoff will truly show you that the TC is handling the process but the AE is relaying to the TC for backup.
If you need to setup another AE, simply follow setups 3-10.
I hope this helps others.  I've done this setup 100 times on Linksys devices and although they are cumbersome, they at least allow me to do this setup much more quickly and easily than the apple products. 

Answer 1

I had to do some serious workarounds to use the Airport Extreme Base Stations as an access point with the same wireless network name primarily due to channel overlap.  I thought I would post my results here since I didnt' find a good article online.
Also, I found the Snow Leopard verison (5.4.2) of the Airport Setup Utility far superior to Lion's Airport Utility (6.x) in terms of advanced setup. 
Setup is a 3 flloor house where the 3 wired network locations have wireless overlap.  The problem was that the access points would not hand off the wireless signal because the channels for each airport/TC were automatically set to the same channel.  In non-apple setups, this is how you force a wireless client to switch access points (since the wireless software on your client/mac/windows can detect which access point is stronger and moves to the alternate channel.
Using apple's "Extend this wireless network" option removes any ability to manually configure wireless channels.  I am writing this from memory, so feel free to ask questions and I will track this topic:
Procedure
Setup time capsule as your base station.  Do all the setup for your wireless and guest networks.  Manually configure the network and change the wireless channel to a specific channel for a/b/g networks (e.g., 3) and n networks (e.g, 167).
Plug your first airport extreme/access point into your wired network.  Do not plug it into the "internet" ethernet plug, use one of the 3 ethernet switch locations
Use the airport utility to first configure it to "extend" your wired network. 
Then, go in and reconfigure it manually in the airport utility.  Choose the option to setup a "new network" and name the network the same as the TC wireless network name, security, etc.
Change the channel from "auto" to a different channel than the TC (e.g., 6 and 137). 
Now go to the top tab and click on the "internet" icon
Go to the DHCP tab and change it to "bridge mode."  This will tell the AE to not give out IP addresses (the TC will do this for you).  If you get an error that the IP ranges conflict, you have not done this
Note that if you have a guest network setup, you will need to set this up on the AE as well. 
Now test your airport setup.  Take your client (macbook, iOS device) and connect to your network.  Move to a spot near the TC and pull up a web page.  Keep an eye on the signal strength and beginv moving toward the AE.  Refresh the page as you move around.  You should at some point see the signal strength increase.  Refresh your page again.  You should be now connected to to the AE.  I have found that Macbooks do a better job than iOS devices because you get an extra signal bar to measure strength, and they have larger antennas which allows you to better measure problems with handoff
Another test you can do is to start backing up on your TC and then test the move.  The handoff will truly show you that the TC is handling the process but the AE is relaying to the TC for backup.
If you need to setup another AE, simply follow setups 3-10.
I hope this helps others.  I've done this setup 100 times on Linksys devices and although they are cumbersome, they at least allow me to do this setup much more quickly and easily than the apple products.