It seems only fitting that my first entry is something completed yesterday, so as the premier feature I offer an alternative to obnoxiously priced modern mailboxes. You must be handy, or, as I am fortunate enough to have, a handy partner who can engineer your vision into reality with a bit of basic carpentry skills. So you’ve googled “modern mailbox†only to find that $400-$4,000 a pop isn’t quite what you can rationalize in your budget. So you start thinking……Can I (or someone dear to me) MAKE something that will suit my taste and not break the bank?
I too have lusted over the Neutra numbers on DWR, but again, $75 each….enter research mode.
WestOn Letters’ (link below) website provides my numbers at a budget price -I choose “deep ribbon†with spacers. Cost about $85 for all 3. I sketch out my vision of simplicity to be translated by my crafty counterpart into real measurements. Wood, deck stain, gravel brought the grand total up to about $125.
 
Pressure treated dog eared fence pickets screwed together on a frame with stainless steel screws. He cut the curve for the mailbox with a reciprocating saw and built a platform within the column for the mailbox to sit. We used our old mailbox so that cost is not included in our budget. Gravel at the base serves 2 purposes – keeps the look minimalist, but also keeps the wood off the dirt so it won’t rot, despite being pressure treated. We put a sheet of plastic under the gravel as well as an additional moisture barrier. The roof between the side walls is pitched at a slant (shed roof) for water runoff.
Found the mossy stones in my yard to finish the look and voila!
WestOn Letters site
UPDATE: I’ve added this to the FAQ since I get it a lot!
Q: How is the mailbox attached to the ground?
A: It’s not! The box we built for the mailbox housing is a sleeve with a crossbar that the metal mailbox is mounted upon. The original post in the concrete is still under there to keep it from falling over or getting knocked over.
