Although, tbh, this issue could be solved as well with an inexpensive off the shelf wifi router - but where's the fun in that?
The real fun in rolling your own is not so much the wifi part: It's what you can do if your router runs a general-purpose distro such as TCL and you give it a static IP (or, if that's not available from your ISP, then DDNS service from noip.com or the like). Now you can run any server you need--e.g., ssh/sftp, http, xmpp--on bare metal that's 100% under your control.
With TCL you can make your router do virtually anything you want it to. (Well, with some limits. I haven't figured out how to make mine do the dishes for me.)