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Trash To Treasure

Mailbox Use?

20 years ago

The color is way off due to lighting. I have sanded them and put on a coat of grey primer. I want to stencil wall borders and thought these would be good to practice on. Only I can't think of a use for them?

Lucy

Here is a link that might be useful: {{!gwi}}

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Comments (5)

sweets98
20 years ago
On Garden Junk a woman made birdhouses out of old lunch boxes...you could do the same by drilling a hole in the front or even just making it LOOK like a birdhouse but have it not really be functional.

Use it somewhere in the house to hold items...how about a tissues? Will a tissue box fit in the one? Use it to hold your mail supplies like envelops and stamps? A message center..put a note pad and pen and keep it near the phone. Bills?

GL!
lpalta
Original Author
20 years ago
GL, I love the idea of a birdhouse. The rectangular mailbox has a couple of openings I can prop open. I will have to go over to the old house where I keep it and check it out. I do know it is one heavey mailbox. The other box is kind of roundish and I still haven't made up my mind what I will use it for. I will post pictures soon. Thnaks so much!

Lucy
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Jelly - here's a shot of a couple of my ground orchids in pots in a garden with a Red Tip in the center for some shade. You can see that the one on the left had gotten too much sun. This is what makes me wonder how they would do in the mailbox garden. . . . unless there were nice tall oaks nearby that give it the shade. My mailbox is not on my side of the road and it is on a post that is shared with three of my neighbors. The yard it sits in doesn't get any water. So for this one I doubt the orchids would be good. But I've got tons of baby guara plants that I have no room for in my yard. Here's the side yard with about 8 white ones in a long row: And here's the end of the bed: I don't think I can cram anymore in this space! But they look so great in real life when you can see them against the grass with roses peeking out. I did a search for ground orchids to see what the experts say so I could direct your question. My experience is mostly from way further south - where it was frost-free and shady. I had some awesome ground orchids down there. then we moved to Highlands County and got hit with the "mild" winter. It is taking the ground orchids a long time to recover, even though they are all (about 12) in containers and we moved them onto the porch. My mom lives in Longwood and used to have them so gorgeous under the oaks. I guess that was during a long stretch of warmer winters. Hers have just petered out over the years. So I don't know what to tell ya. The ones I have seen at stores cost around $16. So I keep dividing mine to get new ones! If you can get them cheap enough, they might be worth trying in Orlando. I'm sure there are lots of folks here with more experience with them than me! Keep us posted on what you end up doing, especially on that mailbox garden! Susie
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Personally I wouldn't want a boulder or brick wall because I don't wan to kill anyone even if they are stupid and talking on a cell phone while digging around on the floor for change. To save your house and front lawn a long term solution you might try is putting in what I think of as a tire trap. Dig in 2 to 4 rows perpendicular rows of 8 x 8 treated landscaping timber. See if you can get it pre-drilled somewhere so you can pound rebar down the holes into the ground. Bury them a few inches. Anyone coming off the road's front tires will, hopefully, bump up over the first one, go back down and not have enough energy to buck over the second, if they are at higher velocity, they will hit the third one. You might want some cop traffic expertise on spacing. They will look kind of weird, you could try hiding with some shrubs because weeds will grow inbetween, but you cant fill in with anything like flowers and mulch because that would defeat the purpose. Maybe some heavey duty weed barrier and dark colored gravel? As for the mailbox, I've seen some country people put their mailbox's out on a long long long horizontal pole, the base is set way back. Paint it a bright color and put reflectors on it. May not stop people from hitting it but would help in court if it ever comes to that.
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Places like Home Depot sell little flags that you can attach to your wall mounted box. I don't have one of those little flags yet and was searching the web to see what the best way is to alert my mailman that I have out going mail and that's how I ended up here. From the info I've found, you should have the stamp showing. I think what I'm going to do is just prop the mail up lengthwise, making it visible, and if the lid doesn't sit on top in a way so the mail wont blow around, I'll take a big clothespin to it. I am also considering just putting a post it note on the box. That would be even easier for both myself and my mailman. I have always had a mailbox on a post by the rd because my mm drives but I'm now disabled and can't get out there very well, esp in winter. If you need your mm to deliver to a wall mounted box, get your dr to write a letter expl that you have physical issues and it's not safe for you to go out away from the house to get your mail. Get that letter to the local post master and it should be all set. The man from the USPS 800 # gave me that info. He said I just have to do that and either put on a box near my door or install a slot. It's been going well except for this mailing letters business. I'm going to call and ask about the post it note. Good luck. GGG
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Comments (3)
I would take away the chairs and everything else from the area. Visitors should be able to find your house using the numbers on your mailbox. Since you live in a wooded area, I would keep any shrub plantings very natural. We don’t know where you live, what is a large city near you, so we know what plants will grow where you are? You can visit a local nursery to see which shrubs they recommend for your growing conditions. Is it shady or sunny? Because you are in a wooded area, I’m assuming the leaves stay where they fall, so you won’t be weeding or mulching between any plantings. A grouping of native shrubs would look nice, and wouldn’t need any special care once established, except to remove any volunteer tree seedlings around them occasionally. A local nursery should be able to direct you to appropriate choices for your space. Places like big box stores don’t usually have people who know a lot about the plants, you might want to find a regular garden center/ nursery where they will also have a better selection. I suppose if you hollowed out your logs and drilled drainage holes for the excess water, you could plant in them, but the ones you picture don’t look like good candidates. Some pots would probably be easier. Do you have a convenient way to water them if you plant annuals? They might need water every day or two. Otherwise, consider some easy perennials in the ground around the mailbox that won’t need much care once they are established.
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sweets98
20 years ago
Lucy,
GL means Good Luck. LOL I really must start adding my name all the time to the posts because I seem to be confusing a few people!

GL with your mailboxes :)

~Leslie
nwroselady
20 years ago
If you have a large yard you could mount one on a post at a distance from your house and stash extra gardening tools in it. I hate trucking to the far corner of the yard only to realize I've left something vital in the tool shed.
joyfulguy
20 years ago
I was thinking that I didn't even get to use my rural mail box at the end of the lane in its regular function through quite a bit of the winter.

We have these beasts called "snowplows" that travel up and down the roads with wings hanging over the ditches to throw the snow way back off of the road, to leave room for later snowfalls.

The wings being not very compatible with mailboxes, the mailboxes come off second best when they wrestle.

After the first battering of the season, I brought the mailbox in to the house, concerned for its survival.

The corrolary of this was that it was necessary for me to travel 5 mi. total daily to the P.O. - on a number of days to suffer the disappointment of returning home ... enmpty-handed - but that would have been the same had my mailbox been operational.

Toward spring I was looking for my electric drills as I went about my affairs, as I hadn't seen them since my move here upwards of a year ago.

One day I put the mailbox on the workbench and went to work on bending out a number of bends, crooks and creases that had been added recently.

Did a fairly competent job, if I do say it myself (if one doesn't do a fair job, the mail lady won't deliver: she doesn't feel it to be her job to wrestle with mailboxes).

Used the recently-located electric drill with wire brush to clear off rust, then primed and painted, dealing with some problems in that the dribs and drabs in spray paint cans had been rescued from garbage about 6 years ago and now their internal stirring ball wouldn't move until major shaking took place ... which meant that chunky paint did an effective job of plugging spray heads.

Finally got the job done to my satisfaction and remounted the box at the end of the lane.

Now, though the flag may not be up, I can't see that until I get half way down the lane to the box ... may as well go the rest of the way: I need the exercise.

So much for my mail box ...

... well, until next major snowfall, anyway.

ole joyful

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