@Vincent-TP 

Good morning, thanks for the reply. I probably should have provided a little more detail. I'm a retired networking professional (42 years, I started in mainframes and minis!), so I tend to assume everyone already knows what I'm talking about, sorry! Ikm coming from Meraki but don't want to spend that for my home. I'm aware of the difference between mesh and roaming. I was under the impression (based on instructions) the failover was required to enable mesh; that has proven not to be the case. 

I put the equipment together as a testbed. It's eventually going to become the network in my mountain home in Panama. The main issue is it's a 3400 sq ft two story concrete structure with stone facing.  All exterior walls and some interior walls are 6", the rest are 4" (it had an addition and the exterior walls became interior...).  All that to say running cable is relatively painful but will at least be minimally necessary. My goal is wired, but realistically there will be some APs that require mesh. I'm hoping to use the mesh to bridge the floors and POE centrally on each floor to keep the hops down. So far it looks like I need at least 2-3 APs per floor to maintain sufficient coverage. I will also be placing APs for outdoor coverage at some point, and may need to extend the network to a remote control gate about 1/4 mile away.  

I figured out I can link the isolated APs without the Auto Failover setting, so it's all good now. 
 

I was thinking another POE switch for the other floor. Any other suggestions are welcome!

Thanks,

Bob