Poor wifi - advice on design please

[keymoo]

As the "IT Guy" a totally techno-illiterate friend has asked me to sort out his crappy wifi without having to rewire the whole house. I am decently knowledgeable about general networking, but not about Wifi. Powerline adapters are not an option because the house has been extended multiple times with upstairs having a totally separate electric connection. He's tried it and didn't work.

He currently has a BT standard wifi/router/modem with FTTC, it has 4x 1Gb LAN ports. Family is complaining about how bad the network is. His floor plan is below

The orange lines are existing CAT 5e cable and the "repeater" is just a wifi AP with a different SSID to the BT Wifi AP. The purple areas are black spots and upstairs has very poor wifi which drops out regularly.

I am proposing the following, by telling him to buy several 5-port Netgear switches and connect APs to them.

He would like the whole wifi network on the same SSID. Is this possible? Also is it OK to daisy-chain two switches for the X-Box Room shown with dashed line? I am proposing he needs to do the following:

1. Remove one cable from existing modem/router to office. Put in new switch plus AP there so AP can reach outside.
2. Run a CAT6a cable from modem/router to upstairs switch, then add an AP there.
3. Remove the current wifi AP next to the Loo and install a switch and AP there, and connect the PC other side of Loo to switch.
4. Put a switch next to the TV with existing cable and add an AP so wifi can reach garden (south of the Kitchen).
5. Run a cable from Loo switch to X-Box room and daisy-chain another switch there for X-Box, or maybe do without the switch and plug it in.

Is this sound advice? My main concern is the Wifi, I don't know if one AP can hand off to another, or what I should recommend he buys. My initial thought is Netgear Switches and Unifi APs, but dunno.

 

[Orcvader]

I would be tempted to move the kitchen access point right by the garden wall side, it looks a little too close to the loo AP and could overlap. I would also be tempted to ceiling mount the AP by the loo a little closer to the store room wall so it'll have better line of sight for the lounge, kitchen and desktop PC area. If you ceiling mount the upstairs access point it should hopefully be strong enough to reach the box room below. I would also disable the Wi-Fi on the BT hub and get something like a few Unifi access points so devices can properly hand-off/roam between each access point.

As for switches, have a look at TP-Link as well, whatever is cheaper. If you want it a bit tidier (eg freeing up a power socket) maybe look for switches with power over ethernet as well, they can provide power for the access points.

And yes, it's fine to daisy chain switches, doing the same here, one main switch, and smaller switches by the TV and PC.