Mailbox Rehab

Our little ol' mailbox was in dire need of a little TLC.  Not nearly as much as our sweet little neighbor lady's, however, so I decided, since I was planning to do ours I might as well do hers at the same time.

After removing them from their wobbly perch the young one and I got busy and removed the hardware before getting after them with a piece of medium fine sandpaper.  It took a lot of elbow grease and a putty knife to get the surfaces smooth and the old numbers scraped off.  Especially the neighbor's.  It was pretty rough and originally harvest gold.  Go figure.

Our faded green one and our neighbor's rusty multi colored one

With a rag we got them all cleaned up and in the sunshine they dried really quick.  Once again the dollar store shower curtain was spread out on the lawn and tacked down with rocks from the flowerbeds.

We used Claret Wine spray paint which matches the trim on our respective houses perfectly. It looks really red in the pictures, but it actually is more burgandy.  After several light coats, inside and out we left them all day to dry.  We cleaned up the hardware and got it put back on that evening.

Sanded, cleaned and drying in the sun

Next came the numbers I bought last month in anticipation of this project.  To me it was like icing on a cake.  But guess what?  The stupid things wouldn't stay on.  They kept popping off.  Not sticky enough, so they'll be going back to the store.

I figured I'd have to take the numbers back and then go somewhere else to search for new numbers.  Not what I was hoping to do on Memorial Day.  I really wanted to be done with this.  Then I figured I'd just make a stencil and use the black spray paint I already have in the garage and just spray the numbers on.  Duh!  Why didn't I just think of that in the first place.

The young one learned how to spray paint

I used Stencil font on the computer and printed out our house numbers on a sheet of paper and used my razor knife to cut them out.  Since our address is only one number different than the neighbor I only had to print one extra number.  Once I was done with ours I cut off the last number and replaced it with hers.  Then I stenciled her box.

We reinforced the post so it wouldn't wobble any more with a couple more long screws and then the mailboxes were put back in place.  What an amazing difference!  I took before and after pictures to show our neighbor since she is pretty much housebound and won't get to see them until one of her kids picks her up for a doctor appointment.

All dry and ready for hardware and numbers

For the price of a can of spray paint ($3.67) we now have a couple of pretty spiffy mailboxes, if I do say so myself.  Won't the mailman be surprised?  He might even feel like he can safely put off getting his next tetanus booster.  J

Much improved!

Now all I have to do is return the numbers next time I go grocery shopping since Home Depot is right next door.  Stenciling the numbers saves me over $5.00.  I'll put that toward our next project.