Change Primary Residence to Rental - Improvement Tax Strategy

[Mike Smith]

Hi,

I own a couple single family rentals and a primary residence (PR).  I want to turn my PR into a rental and purchase a new smaller house to live in.  I'm going to have to invest quite a bit of money into my PR (three bathrooms need redoing and some other stuff  - probably won't be doing any of it myself).  I seem to remember hearing at one point in time that  a property has to be "Active" before you can write off/depreciate investments.  Ideally...

I live in PR while improvements are done.

I buy a smaller place and move out and put current PR up for rent.

I write off/depreciate improvements put into current PR.

Anyone have any guidelines on working something like this? 

Thanks in advance!