Because you have to keep the same taxpayer as owner from the relinquished property to the replacement property I'd worry that the legal protection you'd want for a development TIC won't be there.DSTs have high fee but probably are the best path forward for someone who wants to be fully passive and avoid legal risk.

I saw room-to-room rental, and it sounded like a HH situation to me. 

That's sound advice to change your perception.

Sounds like you have amazing experience.

I don't think we will ever have enough "doors" to replace an income in this time frame, but we would like to get to 5 doors in the next 5 years which we would sell in 10-15 years to help supplement our retirement income.  

Current plan is to rip out the carpet, it's trashed, and replace with LVP (one of the four colors, not sure which is best to choose... see attached image), replace the laminate counter with granite.

Roof is approx 15 yo. 4 water heaters been replaced in past 5 years. current brings in $5200 month.

Hard to tell of course.It sounds like you really want to get rid of it.

Sounds like a pain... 

A good amount of plumbing had been replaced and I didn't need to rough anything.