Community Mailbox Stand

As a side project, that night I designed a decal and lettering for our mailbox on Cricut design space.

A project that was a long time coming...

I really can’t believe it took us so long to do this simple project, particularly with how well it came out. It all started about a year and a half ago, with a bear. I woke up one morning, and noticed that the entire bank of mailboxes were lying in the street, and a number of apples from my tree were gone. The bears getting to the apples is a normal thing around here, but the mailboxes, now that was new. I went out to survey the damage that afternoon, and a couple of other neighbors came to help me prop the thing back up. We were able to get it upright using a lot of stakes and bailing wire. It wasn’t supposed to be a permanent fix, but it stayed that way over a year.

Even if the bear hadn’t knocked over the mailboxes, they would have gone sooner rather than later, the wood termites had gotten into the legs, and they were very top heavy in design.

Design and Preperation

We knew we were going to upgrade our mailbox to a newer locking mailbox, which had also sat around in our garage for almost a year. I also wanted to make sure that we could get the project completed in one Sunday, so we wouldn’t miss a mail delivery day. We both wanted the stand to look nice, so it wasn’t an eyesore. But most importantly we wanted to make certain that we never had to do this again.

I came up with the idea of a four legged style that would distribute the weight a little better. We knew we still wanted 4×4’s for the legs, but they also needed to be a bit above ground to keep out the ground termites. Then there was the matter of attaching all these different styles of mailboxes. Some needed lumber underneath and bolted in from the side, some from directly under, some needed to be above the frame so the door could open. Plus, there were nine of them.

The first step was to figure out the foundation. We went with cinder blocks, filled with concrete. They would act as a counter weight to keep the structure from being so top heavy, and keep the wood from being straight in the ground so the termites would be denied their feast. To make the next day easier we built out the frame and pre-cut all the lumber we would need.

As a side project, that night I designed a decal and lettering for our mailbox.

Yes, that is the Stark dire wolf from Game of Thrones.

I found a logo in vector format (SVG) and imported it into Cricut design space, then added the text for our address. The hardest part was the “weeding” of the wolf head into a decal. It took all the tools and patience I didn’t know I actually had.

Build and Finishing

We got up early the next morning and pulled all the mailboxes off the old stand. Then we took out all the stakes, bailing wire and old mailbox posts. The old stand pretty much fell on it’s own. There were also couple of stands that were there before that we had to dig out. Once those were out we dug trenches to level the stand. The ground was on a slope so the right side had to be deeper than the left. Thankfully the ground was soft from all the melted snow.

Once the trenches were done we put the stand in, and filled some dirt around, leaving about 2 inches of exposed cinder block. We poured the remaining cement around the top of the dirt and base to create a mound and used some rocks to decorate it. This would keep out the termites, and just general wood rot from moisture.

Then it was time to screw in the supports and cross beams. Once that was done I added another layer of stain to help protect the wood from the elements. When the stain was dry we attached all the mailboxes again. Of course the only mailbox to give us trouble attaching was our own new one, and it was dusk and chilly before we finally finished attaching ours.

The finished product

This was a very fun project. Since we had let our neighbors know when we were doing it, most of them stopped by during the day to say hi, and give their thanks. It was great getting to talk to them and we very much appreciated the help some of them gave us to buy the materials. Just like the mailboxes on the stand we are a pretty close community with everyone watching out for each other.

Do It Yosself