I've had a Netgear c7000v2 modem/router gateway for almost a year. I recently moved into a slightly larger home and decided a mesh system would better suit my needs and purchased the Deco x60 3-pack at Costco. 

I know that I have to turn off the wireless abilities of the Netgear in order to use the Deco system. There are two ways to do this. In wireless settings, I can individually turn off the transmitters for the 2.4ghz and 5ghz networks; or, I can simply put the Netgear into bridge mode. This is where I need some clarification.

I would prefer to still be able to use the ethernet ports in the back of the Netgear along with the Deco wireless. I have other devices that I keep near my router and it would be convenient to have the Deco plugged into one of those ports with these other devices using the remaining ports. I believe to configure it this way I need to do the following:

1) Turn off the individual wireless networks on the Netgear instead of going into full bridge mode

2) Connect one of the Decos to the Netgear and configure it in AP mode

3) Set up the remaining Decos in various parts of the house

4) Connect the other hard wired devices to the Netgear

Since the Netgear is still acting as a router, I should be able to use the remaining ethernet ports and those devices will be assigned IP adresses, right? Conversely, if I set the Netgear into bridge mode and the Deco in router mode those other ethernet ports won't work correctly and I would need to hard wire the other devices into the one remaining port on the Deco (probably via a switch since there is more than one other device).

Is my understanding correct? I have had it set up this way for about a month and it was working fine. However, I was having intermittent connectivity issues over the weekend. I wasn't sure if it was my ISP (they claimed I had a strong signal and no neighbors were complaining on social media), my Netgear, or the Decos. So, I thought that I would ask here to make sure my configuration was correct.