I was going to paint the cabinets, add recessed lights and have the whole room plastered and repainted.

Always order doors/windows, and then custom cabinets, as soon as you can.

I highly recommend you listen to a couple hundred episodes of the BiggerPockets podcast.

A hundred bucks loss is one thing, but you have likely lost 6 figures in cash flow in these 8 years. 

I'll help fix cabinets, mop floors, heck I'll walk your dogs if I need to.

So at end of day congratulations, you got a property for too much, a reno that took 2x longer then need be at 3x cost could have been, and an investment that's now performing at the wonderful mark of only loosing how ever many hundreds per month. 

All rents were a few hundred bucks under market value.

We converted the half bath into a full, closed off a section of the loft as a private bedroom, cleaned up the walls, added stone to the brick fireplace, refurbished the cabinets, replaced the counters, installed new flooring and lights throughout, custom build a porch swing, some landscaping, and then operated the property as a vacation rental for 6 months.

When things go south, you'll lose money and you'll lose the friendship.I've managed for hundreds of owners.

There are hundreds of examples of people having less experience, less education, and not speak English.