Time spent reading biggerpockets, browsing the MLS, crunching numbers on potential properties, watching RE videos on YouTube...those are not rental real estate trade or business hours.Hours spent bookkeeping for the rental, interfacing with your PM, interfacing with contractors, interfacing with tenants, etc are generally ordinary and necessary rental real estate trade or business functions.Income tax law is complex. 

Would it be worth it to simply have a crew come in and make the entire back yard into a small brick patio?

The patio is probably graded away from the house, so it diverts the water away from the wall.  

The authors believe this same rationale can apply to the Section 121 gain exclusion rules.Caution: If gain from the sale of the residence to the controlled entity exceeds the maximum Section 121 exclusion, the excess is taxable as ordinary income (rather than capital gain), since the controlled entity (related-party) purchaser will depreciate the property.Also, the S-Corp need to be funded to have minimum about of down payment required.

Otherwise, chock it up to ordinary wear-and-tear. 

Although for example, if you "flip" a property, the profit/gains are taxed as ordinary, earned income (including self-employment tax) since you are considered dealing as opposed to investing. 

I have family who are on standby to help financially in case something out of the ordinary comes up.

These firms are fairly expensive so often not worth the cost for something like a duplex.In the past, I had looked into doing cost seg on smaller assets, but my straight line depreciation expense exceeded the cash flow so it didn't make sense to do cost seg, and then have to recapture all that depreciation later at ordinary income.There is an IRS publication that may help you. 

Charlotte Landscape and Patio is good. 

This is due to the way REIT dividends are taxed as ordinary income as opposed to capital gains, this makes them a prime consideration for a Roth account and will almost guaranteed significantly outperform the broad S&P500 over an investors lifecycle.