New Mailbox for Historic Home

Growing up on a farm with a family who never wasted anything, I find myself being of that same mindset as I get older.  As with anyone who works with building materials and that sort of thing, there are left overs of  materials I've purchased. Small pieces of steel are among these items sometimes, so I saved them without knowing what I would do with this stuff.

I got the idea to make a double mailbox- one for our neighbors and one for my family, partly because we needed one that was more substantial and also because I had the materials handy. We happen to have a shared a drive between with our neighbors, so a double mailbox was appropriate,

I used steel pieces and welded them together in the shape of a big house. In front I made two doors, one for our mailbox and one door for the neighbors. Inside and on top is the space for mail, below each box has an enclosed space for a newspaper. I hinged the doors and attached springs which keeps them shut.

After priming the mailbox I let it sit and dry completely. With some help from the family, we painted the house muted colors to give it an impressionistic look. We didn't want the brick design, windows or front doors we painted to stand out too much, so we use soft brush strokes for everything except the numbers. We wanted the numbers to show up well, so those were done in black and thinly outlined with a metallic gold paint. After the painting was done, I used a high quality sealer to protect the boxes from the elements.

After searching online, I see there are about as many different types of mailboxes as their are homes that go with them. However, I haven't yet found one like this; made out of steel yet having decorative features. It's a possibility we might add custom made mailboxes to the line of products we sell, depending on the demand and shipping costs, etc.

I plan to write more on this later, but for now, this is the finished product.