Letterbox Lovin'

When we were building our front fence, I was originally thinking we would get a letterbox like this.

Longbeach Fencing

In fact, I actually went to Bunnings and bought exactly that letterbox, thinking we would need to build it into the fence palings. It wasn't cheap, at $119!

And considering that our intention to one day turn the area under the house into a self-contained flat will require another matching letterbox in the fence, that number multiplied by two is not very friendly.

While I drove home with our new letterbox, for the first time in my life I actually started noticing what everyone else does with letterboxes in timber fences. And very few had the type that I had chosen!

Most had ones like this.

Gemma Wiseman

And I knew for a fact, having just come from Bunnings, that these house-shaped letterboxes (metal ones) were about $60, almost half the price of the one I'd bought.

By the time I actually reached our house, I'd made up my mind. My letterbox had to go back. It just wasn't special or perfect enough! And it was certainly too pricey to not be special enough!

So the letterbox sat in the back of my car for a couple of weeks waiting to be returned to Bunnings and switched for a replacement.

And then it occurred to me! I could search on the Internet for the perfect letterbox! A bit of unsuccessful trawling later, and I remembered DinoDirect, where I'd got our fabulous bathroom tap for a fraction of the Australian retail price.

And I found this guy!

And instantly, I was in love! It's unique-ish and not boring (it's certainly not available at Bunnings), and it reminds us of the mailboxes we spotted on our Europe travels! Plus its price was $59.50, and I found a coupon for free shipping!

And in almost no time at all, it arrived... with a twin, since I figured if we'll need a second one down the track for the downstairs flat, it's probably best to buy two that match now in case I can't get another one later. And since the two combined cost me less than the original one from Bunnings, I'm definitely not complaining! Although it does hurt a bit that they're now on sale for $32.69. Damn.

Oh well! It happens. And we were happy to pay the original price, so they were worth it.

Next came the hard part. We had to wait impatiently to pop it into place while the paint on our front fence had enough time to dry and set nicely.

And finally Daniel and I set out armed with our battery drill and some screws. Daniel held it up for me to check the position.

Here's where I made a mistake. The very hot morning sun was shining on us, and I was feeling lazy. So I roughly measured where the holes in the back of the letterbox were in relation to the sides of it with my pen, and started drilling holes into the fence.

That was a stupid idea. Don't do that at home.

Finally my common sense kicked in and I decided to leave it until after work when the area was in shade (it's amazing how much being really hot can affect your judgement). I even remembered the strategy I'd used to position all of the frames on my gallery walls, and decided to do the same thing here.

I traced the outline of the letterbox onto a piece of newspaper and cut it out.

And then I poked holes through the paper into the pre-drilled screw holes in the back of the letterbox with my pen. Easy peasy!

Shame about this poor girl's ankle, though!

And then I simply held the newspaper up against the fence...

And drew little dots on the fence through the holes in the paper.

And then it was a fairly simple matter of just drilling holes in the places where I'd marked the dots.

We had to give up on the screws that actually came with the letterbox, and brought out the tougher screws we'd used to attach palings to the fence. The flap at the top was very conveniently located to allow us easy access to put them in.

And while we were at it, I put up some bright shiny new house numbers on the post next to it. I've had to edit those out though, because it's probably not so sensible to broadcast our house number all over the Internet. You'll just have to imagine how pretty they are.

We're thrilled. In our eyes, our new letterbox is the perfect guy. Hardworking, dark and steely, with a European accent. Mmm... perfect.