My initial thoughts are to spend money upgrading the kitchen and master bath; granite countertops, tile backsplash, maybe a pot filler over range, tile shower, extra windows?

The company makes +-80k gross and +-50K net. I

we rarely see advice on this site from investors that talk about going to your city or county meetings when they are discussing the comprehensive plans.. or I have yet to see anyone suggest you go to your city or county and talk to the long range planner.. its not a guess its planned get ahead of the plan to create real estate wealth. buying a rental house is simply RE starter one oh one and investor tend to simply focus on ONE metric cash flow at the purchase which i guess is fine but its a slow boat to be on . .. but there is so much more to real estate that SFR rentals buy and hope   Hope your tenant is good hope your neighborhood does not go to pot etc. etc.  

I understand that I may not make much money the first few months so I feel it is important to have a bit of a financial safety net. I

It was a Saturday and one family was out and the other was home and my first indication should have been that that side reeked of pot and when we went to head up to the master bedroom on the 3rd floor the husband rushed ahead to hide his stash of weed.

The kitchen is updated but the pots, pans, and utensils all need to be replaced.

and my Grandfather had a hardware store in Chelan back in the day he provided pots pans and utensils for the workers at the Grand Coulee Dam.

Time to crap or get off the pot.

They are basically throwing spaghetti on the ceiling to see what sticks - only their hands are so sticky with so many hands in the pot, the entire ceiling is crashing down.

Yes, there are many options available - if he has a side pot of money he can definitely invest in passive income items.