Opening Repertoire for lazy people

straight from the bookstore

As white, 1. b3. As black, 1....g6

If your main goal is to avoid theory, I'd go with the Rubinstein as my main weapon.  What that does is gives you one variation to cover all of 3.Nd2 and 3.Nc3.  Then you just have the Advance, and the less theoretical Exchange.  There is one book that covers all of that as a repertoire for Black.  The link below will take you there:

https://www.amazon.com/French-Defense-Solid-Rubinstein-Variation/dp/1941270050/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1478027547&sr=8-2&keywords=French+Defense

If you want a more adventurous game with the French, I would say maybe go with Watson's book or the one by Aagaard and Ntirtis, which are each single volume books, not as taxing as the recent 3-volume one of the French also published by Quality Chess.

They are also fairly easy to expand on.

For example, in the Colle, the Anti-Colle lines, where Black moves his Bishop outside the pawn chain, basically calls for a Slav Transposition, but it avoids many of the lines, so there's not much needed.  Basically just the Slow Slav.  Many Colle books cover that as part of the repertoire.  Don't recall 100% what Lakdawala recommends after 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.e3 Bf5 or 3...Bg4.

As for the Torre, once you've nailed it, while it is different, the transition from the Torre to the Trompowsky is not extreme.  It's like going from e5 Najdorfs to e6 Najdorfs.  Sure, they are different, but it's not like going from the Najdorf to the Caro-Kann.

You could also go the other route and add the Symmetrical English instead, going via 1.Nf3.  If 1...c5, then 2.c4.  If 1...d5, then 2.d4 and head towards a Colle.  If 1...Nf6, then 2.d4 and if 2...d5, then 3.e3 while if 2...g6 or 2...e6, then 3.Bg5.

Many don't realize the flexibility of which way to expand your repertoire if you know the Torre and Colle!  And at the same time, there's no "need" to expand if you know those two, but you can in many different routes if you wanted to just by shuffling the move order around, starting with 1.d4 versus starting with 1.Nf3.

Thanks for the ideas ThrillerFan. I've actually been looking at some symmetrical english/reti games and thinking it would be a fun way to get something different in my own games. This sounds like an easy way to get some experience.

IIRC you've said in other topics you play both 1.e4 and 1.d4?