I'm thinking people will surely open them with the way I designed them...

I worked construction before going back to college and design is a huge weakness for me and in every remodel I've done I always have one color scheme that is pretty bad.

Its designed by definition to thwart "getting in ahead of the trustee auction".That said, if you started with the seller months ago, sure.

I am not on the title and I understand I could always put a mechanics lien on the property, but are there other safety measures I could put in place to limit my exposure?  

Without getting into too much detail on the mechanics of hard money, my FIL and I put together a budget (my FIL was indispensable here) and presented it to the lender.

If she is really anal about her "super secret lease" language, offer to sign an NDA (non disclosure agreement) which your lawyer can draft, that says you can't use anything unique in her lease, to design your own lease.

I am not a designer but I have worked as a subcontractor on a number of assisted living centers.  

I am a serial entrepreneur; I do websites, internet marketing, graphic design, and t-shirt designs.

If you have lots of access to the property, that cost might be less.Modern houses do are not designed the same way as houses build 20-30 years ago.

@Dolly Caswell, I think the folks you're talking to don't understand the true mechanics of a 1031 exchange.