Creating a private sub-network on existing shared network

Question

I'm a little new to networking, and am trying to set up a network for myself.

The situation:

I have two laptops and two smartphones. The apartment complex I live in gives me a single ethernet wall port to connect to the internet. The building evidently has a router; plugging either laptop into the ethernet port gives me access to the internet, with a different local network IP (X.X.X.95 and X.X.X.97). Additionally, being connected directly to this ethernet port reveals other computers in the network/building in file explorer's "network" tab.

I recently bought a Linksys E2500-EW router.

What I want to do:

First of all, I want to have Wi-Fi in my flat. This part isn't too much of an issue; just turn on the router I bought and connect to it.

However, I'd like to have my own private network on this router. In other words, I would like to connect all my devices to my router, "hiding" behind it, and have the router connected to the ethernet port. From the point of view of the building network, there should only be a single IP address in use, and only one device; the router. My laptops shouldn't appear on the building network; they should only see each other.

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How would I achieve this/ how should I set up my router settings? I'm rather lost, and need to be careful; another person on the network recently disabled internet for the building by adding their own wifi-router to it (I believe the issue had to do with DHCP being enabled). The building administration aren't tech-savvy and aren't much help.

Looking into the E2500 setup page, I'm lost as to what to select for the "Internet setup" and "Network setup" categories.

Thank you for any help!

Answer 1

For the hardware side, all you have to do is the connect the internet port (the yellow marked port) to the wall port. If the internet setting is still at its default (internet connection type: automatic configuration DHCP), everything should work als you like.

Check whether the router uses the same subnet as the house network, if necessary you will have to change the subnet of your router.

As long you do not connect LAN ports to the wall port, you will not harm the whole network in the house.