Found Mail Box Victorian DIY Re-Style

OK, I know most of you probably don’t have gee gobs of art supplies lying around like I do, but even if you had to buy the supplies for a project like this it would be pretty cheap. I found this old mailbox abandoned in an alley near my home, and I used supplies I had on hand to fix it up to match our Victorian house so this project didn’t cost me a dime…

Admittedly it is a temporary fix, as we have our eye on a really nice proper Victorian mailbox in the future, but for now, this one is cute, and is much much better than the basket we had sitting next to our door for mail 😉

Mail Box – BEFORE (yikes!)

First things first, I cleaned it up, scraped off the vinyl house letters on top, and did my best to remove the industrial crud stuck on the front. I couldn’t get all of the cement-like substance off, but planned to cover it up with a fun design…

Then I painted the inside a gloss purple. Why purple? It matches our house trim. Most people don’t think about the inside of a mailbox, but you see it every time you get the mail (and maybe the mail carriers appreciate it too 😉

Next came the outside. I painted it in a copper metal paint because most of the metal (the gutter, the rain chain, etc.) is copper on the front of the house. This paint is real copper, patinas with time, and wears well. I couldn’t find this exact brand online (I’ve had it for years) but there are many great metallic paints out there at home improvement stores. This paint took 4 coats to cover completely. Any nice color would work equally well, especially nice in gloss.

Next came the fun part. I pulled out my big box of bits and jewels and played around till I had a design I liked, then glued it on with Duco Cement. The jewels I chose to use where wrapped in copper metal tape, so were an obvious choice (I acquired all the jewels from artist Lonnie Hanzon’s studio auction years ago. I’ve been using them up bit by bit over the years.) You could glue anything onto a box like this: beads, findings, whatever tickles your fancy.

I decided to write “Mail” on the box, and had a little fun using my old calligraphy skills. (it’s far from perfect, but it will do.) Writing not your cup of tea? Buy some nice stick-on letters at the home improvement store or decoupage it. If your box is away from your door, you may want to put your house number on the box instead. Here I used permanent marker and metallic paint marker for the accents. (the box is in total shade so will not be faded by the sun)

And here it is hung by the front door. A fun, funky one-of-a-kind mailbox.

I hope you’ve been inspired to create your own fun mailbox! For more inspiration, do a Google image search for “unique mailbox”. There are some amazing creations out there!