Help with Mesh WiFi System

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I built my house 3 years ago and it's never been an issue until recently.

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I hate to be that guy but how the hell did you build a new house and not have ethernet run to every room and every possible TV location?

Where do you have ethernet run to?

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The installed the modem/router almost directly above the living room in the attic.

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That’s not a bad spot to be in.
Could drop an Ethernet cable down to the TV from attic potentially.

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Could drop an Ethernet cable down to the TV

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Agreed; I always had to have at least a five port switch behind the TV for the Xbox, the receiver, the TV, the Phillips Hue controller, etc. anyway.

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My assumption is the only ethernet is run to the attic.

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pulling wire isn't the funnest thing in the world, buit if you have ethernet in the attic, you could connect a switch and drop lines down the walls of key rooms you want wired. not too difficult to find the cable; cut a hole in the wall in the room and stick a light in it. go into the attic and guide the wire down to it and then put in a $2 monoprice wall plate with an ethernet keystone.

where is the other end of the ethernet that is going into the attic?

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Should also mention, around the same time this dead spot appeared, my Ring doorbell on the front porch (15' from living room TV) also stopped connecting.

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when i purchased a ring, i complained about signal drop-out and amazon sent me a free little doohicky to plug into the wall between the ring and the router. it did the trick.

There are two ways to do it, yes, you plug it into the modem/router with an ETH cable (go to monoprice or buy them off of Amazon in a pack of 10, you'll find uses for them.)
1) Plug the Deco in and let it act like it's own router, creating a different subnet behind AT&T. Unless you need to forward ports (unlikely) from the Internet into your house, nobody needs to be contacted or called.

2) Put the modem into passthrough mode and make the Deco the "primary" router between the Fiber modem (which is now just a bridge in passthrough mode, which means its main job is to turn the connection from Fiber into Ethernet, and do nearly nothing else.) I feel that #2 is slightly more complicated to most users.

He can also use ceiling mounted WAPs, so there's no cable drop (although that means you won't get ETH to the entertainment center)

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1) Plug the Deco in and let it act like it's own router, creating a different subnet behind AT&T. Unless you need to forward ports (unlikely) from the Internet into your house, nobody needs to be contacted or called.

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Would something like this work?

A 2-pack, 1 into the modem/router, 1 in entertainment center by TV?

With a single story home and your internet located in the attic, the ceiling access points make a lot of sense. you can easily put multiple in around the house and you can use wired backhaul to the At&t gateway in the attic. This will give you the best coverage and WiFi performance. They can be had fairly cheap, too (like $70/ea).

Something like 2 or 3 of these: LINK

EDIT: I'd recommend doing ceiling APs as they will reside in the conditioned space. Placing traditional APs in the attic is a bit questionable as it will get very hot up there and the housing for traditional APs isn't designed to handle the dust levels, either. Plus you need to run power.

With ceiling APs, you can get them Power Over Ethernet. You'd just need a PoE inserter at the gateway.