I will never forget.  Deb was just about to lose her marbles about a month ago here at the rental.  She told me that she needed a project.  She is a very creative person.  Not being able to create when your mind is active is a sad thing.  We have a little area with several tools down in the basement here, so she can handle smaller jobs.  As I was browsing Pinterest and adding to our projects board, I came across a mailbox that I loved.  It matched our woods and whites theme that we love so much.  We are going to be needing a mailbox soon, so why not start now. I’m not going to make this a step by step post.  I just figured I would share close-up pictures because any woodworking person can look at this and re-create something similar.  I did want to share links so that you know exactly what we used.  AND… share a new to us product that we are SO IMPRESSED with.  We bought all of our supplies at Home Depot to make this fancy DIY mailbox.

Fancy One-of-a-Kind Mailbox

Deb actually started with a 6x6x8 post and added boards to the bottom of the post to make it bigger.  She sort of followed this guideline to add all of the trim but really did a lot of her own thing.  If you notice, she made the corbel part that holds the mailbox a little fancier.  We actually have antique corbels just like these in storage that we found at a flea market this year.  So she used those as a guide.   She painted the mailbox post with an exterior primer, exterior paint, and then sealed it with our favorite sealer that we have been recently hooked on.  And then added the copper colored mailbox.

Installing the Mailbox

Once the mailbox was done, we got it to the property and used our post hole digger to drill 38″ down.  We added a layer of stone and then set the mailbox in the hole.   We have put up many fences in our days.  Lugging 50 pound bags of concrete around the yard down right sucks.   We found this fence post mix and thought we would give it a try.   We are VERY IMPRESSED!  It’s basically a small plastic bag with two sections that is so easily manageable.  We followed the directions for mixing and dumped it in the hole.  I believe we had a few minutes to make sure the mailbox was level but the fence post mix acted like spray foam.  Once it starts drying, it expands and hardens up.

We will definitely be using that product again for any upcoming projects.

We added the metal numbers that we ended up spray painting to match the mailbox, and a copper acorn on the top of the post to dress it up a little more.  That copper acorn is supposed to patina over time, which I’m excited to see.

We wanted a substantial mailbox at the end of our driveway and I think Deb accomplished this.  And she was able to do something creative and fun while making this one-of-a-kind mailbox.  I am so happy with how it turned out.  What do you think?

FANCY DIY MAILBOX