It’s one of life’s great mysteries. Why do so many people living in upscale subdivisions have mailboxes fit for an Old West ghost town? Posts are slanted like old tombstones, mailboxes are rusted, and the posts look like something you’d hitch a horse to.
They spend so much time and money on flower beds, siding, and exterior painting, and yet the very 1st thing that 1st time visitors see, when finding the house for the 1st time, is a mailbox that makes a bad 1st impression.
Here’s how to upgrade your mailbox to the same quality as your house:
1. Buy a mailbox that fits your house
Model T drivers may have been limited to any color as long as it was black, but not mailbox buyers. Today’s mailboxes are available in white, gray, dark green, dark blue, copper, brass, bronze, decorative illustrations (e.g. wildflowers, wildlife), and many other colors and varieties.
Start by trying to match your mailbox and post to your house. Have a white house with dark blue shutters? Consider a white post with a dark blue mailbox. Is your siding cedar or is your home’s style rustic? Consider a copper mailbox. Colonial style house? Consider a brass mailbox with a sculpted white post.
Now, you are not going to find this level of selection in a big home improvement store – you’ll need to go on the Internet. Here’s a good place to start.
2. Get the numbers right
Here’s our advice on putting house numbers on your mailbox. Put them on the box, where people expect to find your street number, not the post.
Make the numbers as big as aesthetically possible, in part by not crowding them out to accommodate the name of your street – everybody looking for your house already knows that.
Finally, most people don’t realize just how many font size and style options are available for street number lettering because they haven’t thought to check the web. For instance, check out this web site.
3. Forget about teens playing ‘mailbox hockey’
These days, you don’t have to build a brick structure that looks like a bread oven to protect your mailbox from hooligans. Instead, consider buying an attractive, strong steel mailbox like one of these.
4. Install it right
Proper installation means your post should have a concrete footing, and not simply be sitting in a hole in the ground. If you are replacing your mailbox post, the old concrete footing should be dug out and removed, with a new footing poured in the same place.
This concrete work puts this job outside the comfort zone of many do-it-yourselfers. So, who does this kind of work? A plumber, carpenter, electrician, roofer, general contractor? Hmmm. Hey, ever hear of a company called Fix St Louis?
So, improve the appearance of your property, and the 1st impression of 1st time visitors. Think outside the mailbox.