Connecting two home networks via WDS

Hi all,

Great forum here! I ran a couple of searches and was unable to find an answer so am posting a new thread - apologies if this question has already been asked.

We have some friends a few houses away that we wanted to share our network with so that they could use our file server etc.
Both houses have their own networks (they were actually on a different IP range) with own internet connections and DHCP servers.

Will refer to our house as house1 and theirs as house2.

In order to get the thing working we went out and purchased 2x TL-WR741ND and 2x TL-ANT2409B G2.4GHz 9DBi Outdoor Yagi-directional Antenna. Plugged these into switches at each house, created different SSIDs on the TP links and and connected them via WDS bridge.
TP-house1 (TL-WR741ND) creates the WDS by connecting to TP-house2.
We had to disable the existing DHCP servers and move them to the TP Links, and move both networks onto the same range, so currently we're on 10.0.x.x with house1 given 50 ips, and house2 another 50.
Obviously TP-house1's DHCP settings give house1's default gateway and IP range, and TP-house2's DHCP settings give house2's default gateway and IP range.

Some other info:
Currently the SSID's on the TP links are hidden and the only thing they do is allow the WDS. This is because each house has its own existing wireless network so we didn't see the need to complicate matters by using the TP-Links to run the WDS as well as the Wireless LANs.
Currently the TP links connect to the LANs via one of the 4 LAN ports on each device and not through the WAN port.

Issue:
Now, the issue is it appears to be random which DHCP server a device will get its IP from. For example a iPhone connected on house1's network may get its IP address and therefore default gateway and internet from house2's DHCP server on TP-house2. Therefore it will use their internet over the WDS.

Likewise sometimes a PC connected via wired LAN in house2 will get its IP and default gateway from the DHCP server on TP-house1.

While this is not a huge issue, it's a little irritating and I would like to 'fix' the problem as, while we have an unlimited internet plan house2 does not...

Any help would be appreciated

Well to my mind you can re-configure your devices through automatic settings which may help resolve the issue. Or you can also opt for manual settings or seek a guide on setting up local area wireless network. I hope this helps answer your question. Lastly, if nothing works, contact your internet service provider.

Not sure what automatic settings I could use as there is no option to link existing networks via wireless. It needs to be done manually, as it has been. Just wondering if there is a better way to achieve the setup we have now, without the DHCP issue.

Not sure what contacting the ISP will accomplish.. The internet is working fine at both houses.

Just to further clarify, the DHCP issue is random. Sometimes the same device will get an IP from in its own network and sometimes from over the bridge.

If your two networks are bridged and on the same IP Network you can only have one dhcp server for the network - if there are two servers with leases for the same MAC address packets my not get forwarded to the gateway. You should route between networks and that will resolve any dhcp issues. If you don't have local DNS house2 can use the Ip Address of the server to map a drive or use a host file to resolve the server IP Address to a name. You could also use subnetting to break up your IP network into smaller individual networks. Are you using Linux, Mac o windows clients?