If you want to go GApps free, I recently wrote about this. It's very short but points to where to find more.
https://blog.adilparvez.com/post/2016/10/31/1/cyanogenmustar...
Also this might be useful a desktop play store client: http://www.onyxbits.de/raccoon
I wonder if it's possible to dual boot without root and also keeping encryption on, that way I can have a safe option if anything breaks.
Damn, why is it so hard to have control over your things these days. It wears me down.