how complicated does depreciation need to be?

[Eric Littlepage]

I'm doing my taxes for 2017 now.  I've had a duplex since 2012, with tenants in it since 2013.  2017 was a particularly rough year--my property management company has recorded $5700 of repairs that were done, and in between tenants I performed another $1900 of repairs and upgrades (new cabinets).  I hate dealing with depreciation and determining what is a repair (usually is) vs. improvement, but it looks like I need to capitalize this if repairs are more than 2% of the basis.  So, if I need to capitalize all this, I'm wondering how to make this simpler--can I lump them all into one capitalization for 2017?  Or does each month need its own schedule?  Or every purchase?  I have 20 receipts to Home Depot for the year...