Ideally we'd like the investor to get his money back + interest in 3-6 months and be able to leverage any tax breaks from the depreciation and repair (not improvements) BUT we don't want him to have his name on the deed or anything.  

Make sure you're improving your financial position now though. 

For example, if it increases cash flow enough to pay for itself over 5 years, and the market CAP is 10%, it will, by definition, increase the value of the property (from a strictly income approach appraisal perspective) by double the cost of the improvement.

My wife and I are on the same page and really want to take our time finding a deal that works in a location that improves my commute and can pull decent rent for the one unit while we live in the other and both once we move on.We have about $15-20k liquid right now which I know isn't nearly enough.  

No way to get to legal code,,,too narrow,,, too short on headroom...Aim was to make "better" and it has,,,greatly.Been wanting to do this bucket list improvement for 35 years,,,finally had the brainstorm to design and DO it!!!

This time around , I want to improve my project management flow by having a more formal contract and estipulations as to the work quality , delivery expectation and payments.

Everything I earn in real estate goes back into improving and buying. 

Then you would get the most benefit from the bleed over from any improvements you make.Also make sure you are pushing rents up not down.

The best way to ensure success is to be able to have a tenant buyer use a credit improvement service that puts new positive marks on their credit.Regarding double closing on sandwiches, a truly unique way of avoiding two closings is to use a reverse assignment, where you as the investor places a 2nd mortgage in second position and reverse  assigns back to the seller, which avoids the need for transactional funding and two closings

I am also willing to partner on deals or do Joint Ventures as well.