Count the bricks in your picture, multiply by 4.

You'll need a top in addition to four sides so multiply by 5 and you'd have a few left over.

Before building a brick mail box, check with your local USPS Postmaster and local building codes I believe you may be required to buy an "approved" box and build around it and some locations prohibit construction around a mailbox since they're usually placed on the "right of way".

If you create a wider driveway entrance and can put your brick mail box cover on your own land rather than in the right of way so the mail carrier can pause while still on the right of way and be able to reach your box on your land, you'll have a better chance of getting one approved.

Dry lay it out and see, then build it. Like dry fitting tiles for a tile job.

And Mark, once again, made my day!!!

If it were my mailbox, it would might be illegal, something about being able to breakaway when hit by a car.

Seriously? Really, seriously?

Yes, look it up.

Per Federal (USPS) regulations, all mailboxes situated along public roadways must be constructed in such a way that they break away when struck by a vehicle. Since I live in a neighborhood, probably does not apply, except HOA rules!!!

And Jim, just goes to show, I learn something new every day!!! Thanks for the info.

Is how I did my mailbox so it can be moved... Not once it was hit by a mail truck and its a good thing it wasn't permanently attached and could move. Now they replaced curbs and sidewalks in my development so the guys just moved the box out of the way and pushed it back.

So it's a good idea not to permanently attach them requirement or not because you never know.

A neighbor of ours, long ago, got tired of the town's snow plows knocking down his mailbox almost every winter. So, when he had to replace it one year, he embedded a section of railroad rail (not a tie, the rail--he had commercial connections) in concrete and framed it with wood.

And then he waited and watched and called everyone when the nuts and bolts flew all over the place as the plow clipped it. He may be the reason for the code. ;-) It was a quiet neighborhood street, not a thoroughfare, so the chance of any harm was negligible; everybody knew about it.

The brick mailbox enclosure was standard fare in middle and upper class central and south TX neighborhoods when I lived there in the 1980s. Snowplows don't exist in that part of the world; I think they may have had them at one time, but they were consumed by fire ants when they were parked during the off season.

The bricked in mailbox enclosures look nice until the mild steel mailbox has corroded and it requires either a mason or Mark Bischak to replace it.

Or the local garbage truck...

We have brick mailboxes only in our 700+ home subdivision. I agree they are really pretty until someone hits them and then it's really fun to find a brick match to the original brick used for the mailbox or when the mailbox needs to be replaced requiring a dismantle. Luckily our pool guy hit our neighbors mailbox and not ours. Actually my neighbor's has been hit 2x by random vendors. Our is capped with cement as are most of the newer mailboxes in the sub. I am pretty sure they are faced with the house matched brick, interior being cinder block type material.

The last one I made was filled with concrete in the center along with a 2 ft (deep) x 1 ft (wide) hole under near for stability as my mailbox was on an incline. It took ~ 150 bricks.

This conversation is timely. Some high school kid just jumped the curb while driving and texting and hit our neighbor's new brick mailbox. He's okay, his car has some nasty damage, and the mailbox was demolished.

The way the masons construct brick mailboxes, they usually use a semi-solid concrete block as the first course and the rest using regular concrete blocks (some will fill them solid)... They use brick ties to secure the brick to the blocks and use limestone to cap the top.

If you hit that mailbox with an old caddy you might break off a few blocks, but if you hit that brick box with a newer car you will total it... Not to mention you have to be a total moron to hit a mailbox with any car on any given day being this mailbox brick or just a wooden 4x4 post.

"Not to mention you have to be a total moron..."

And then some!

" . . . it requires either a mason or Mark Bischak to replace it."

Would I have to use brick?

How much snow does it take to make a snow mail man?

Inquiring minds want to know...

We live on the outside of a curve, in a place that gets a lot of snow. Our mailbox has been hit 4 or 5 times in the 28 years we have lived here. Even smart people can drive a little too fast on a potentially icy street. Once it was clipped by a snowplow.

The last one who hit my mailbox would have been seriously injured if my mailbox had not given way - he was new to the climate, and had no experience at all driving on ice. Brick mailboxes are nice - there are a few in my neighborhood - but in our location it could be dangerous.

Virgil, it depends on how big the yard! Mark's photo looks like about 3" of snow.

It takes more than that to make a fish:

I live on the Texas gulf coast. I'm 35 and it's snowed 3 times in my life. Snowplows and snow are some elusive thing that I only hear about in movies. And although our mailbox will be in a cluster of 4 mailboxes, I'm sure ours would be the one to get ran over. I'll find something else to do with our bricks.

Normally I would recommend using only two materials, but the duct tape and glass go so well together and the wood is just timeless and classic.

Timeless and classic...yup...good one, Mark!

@Mark Bischak, Architect,

I recommend either you or a mason to replace a bricked-in mailbox with good reason. There's not a lot of variation in the current designs of the bricked-in versions and it's fertile ground for the form-versus-function argument to play out. The example shown above, which repurposes a glass container, adds an additional dimension; it speaks both to saving the planet and the need for transparency in government.

I would not restrict your use of materials unless there are neighborhood architectural covenants or U.S. Postal regulations that require a specific color of duct tape. If colored duct tape hasn't found it's way to your corner of the world, let me know. Our hardware stores stock dozens of colors and patterns.

For a modern edge mailbox and cleaner aesthetic, I prefer using clear shrink wrap instead of duct tape. (I don't like to have bugs stuck to the sticky side of the tape!)

The mailbox in the picture is 8 bricks per course. There are 20 courses

(12 courses to the bottom of the large mailbox, 4 courses around the mailbox which are fewer by at least one brick but have half or less brick on each course to make up for the missing front row, then 4 more corses above the mailbox, keep in mind the top on this mailbox is brick so there are approximately 5 to 10 bricks used there)

so the total of bricks is between 166 and 170) Also keep in mind you will need at least 8 cinder blocks (not concrete blocks) inside the bricks and for the actual large mailbox to sit on. Note a lot of these style mailboxs use a concrete or single stone topper instead of a brick top which will require some sort of support when laying them and to hold them up afterwards this material will have to sit on top of the mailbox or be supported across on the previous course of brick. If you use a concrete or stone topper you will save about 18 brick give or take.

Mine's just a simple slot in the wall that the mailman sticks it in to. But the brick is pretty