Hi!

I am looking for assistance in optimizing my current network setup, which I know is not optimal - I am at where I am now with google and trial and error, and I certainly know it isn't perfect.

The main goal I am aiming for is total home VPN access. I currently use ProtonVPN and would like that to extend to my daughters baby monitors, google nest devices, etc - obviously their official app is not available on these platforms.

So far, this is my setup:

1000/300 ISP coax cable -> modem -> windows 10 mini PC with two Ethernet adapters bridged using ProtonVPNs app (but with ICS from WireGuard adapter enabled to bridge...)-> deco x20.

I have around 20 wireless devices, 2 wired. I can tell I'm getting IP conflicts, but don't know how to correct.

If I DONT enable ICS, the deco won't assign an IP to my mini PC. Even though I can access the internet on the mini, the network bridge seems like it doesn't make the deco switch the port to WAN.

Any IP address OTHER than 192.168.137.1 on the bridge kills internet to the deco.

If I disable ICS, my bridge defaults to the 169.254 unreachable IP.

I don't want to use the Wireguard client because having the protonVPNs app to change servers if needed is critical.

Any thoughts? What I was going to try next is repurpose my old RAX70 as a bridge, so modem -> pc bridge -> rax70 in bridge mode -> x20, hopefully making the deco think it's WAN?

thank you so much for your time, even if you just read it. Appreciate y'all.