Rental Apartment Repairs/Renovations

You would enter the improvement as a new asset in the depreciation section. You may be eligible to take the improvements election. If not, the improvement is depreciated over 27.5 years.

Improvements Election

This election is an option you can take each year that lets you write off some building improvements as expenses instead of assets.

Here are the rules you need to meet to take this election:

• Your gross receipts, including all your other income, are $10,000,000 or less.
• Your eligible building has an unadjusted basis of $1,000,000 or less.
• The cost of all repairs, maintenance and improvements is less than or equal to the smallest of these limits: 
  • 2% of the unadjusted basis of your building or
  • $10,000

This election for building improvements is called the Safe Harbor Election for Small Taxpayers. If you decide to take this option, a form called Safe Harbor Election for Small Taxpayers will show up in your tax return. This election will apply to all your businesses, rental properties, or farms.

We renovated our apartment in between tenants it took 3 months and a little under 10k in materials

Everything you mention in your post is a property improvement. It should be entered as such in the assets/depreciation section, classified as residential rental real estate and depreciated over 27.5 years.

The one exception is the new range. There are two possibilities for this, and you can take either one. I assume the range is invoiced separately as "proof" that it cost less then $2,500.

- You can elect the Safe Harbor de-Minimus option and deduct the full cost of the range if you qualify. If interested in this route, see https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/tangible-property-final-regulations#Ademinimis to determine if you qualify and to see what the requirements are to claim it.

 - You can elect to classify the range as an appliance and depreciate it over 5 years by entering it as such in the assets/depreciation section.

no labor as we did all the work ourselves

Be aware that the value of "your" labor can't be deducted anywhere, or used in the cost basis of anything.

I do not want to get flagged with audit

It's just my personal preference, but that's why I don't take safe harbor di-minimis on anything. I don't know that it would raise flags. But then again, I don't want to be the first to find out either. Besides, for my situation taking a full deduction of a say, a $2000 item just doesn't change my tax liability all that much anyway. Take for example an $800 electric water heater. Since that becomes a part of the plumbing system, which is a part of the structure, it gets classified as residential rental real estate and depreciated over 27.5 years. That's less than $30 a year. Doesn't make a penny of difference to my tax liability. But using safe harbor to deduct the entire $800 the first year makes a "whopping" $4 reduction in my tax liability, if I"m lucky. For me personally, not worth it. I'd rather list it as an asset so that it adds to my cost basis of the property as a whole.

Other's see it differently than I do, and I'm perfectly fine with that.