Part 1 Mailbox Makeover

Sometimes a project around here isn't intended to reach perfection, it's just intended to reach done.

Like this mailbox.

Thin piece of cement board attached for starters

We can't see our mailbox from the house, it's 1/4 mile down our driveway.  Anyone else who drives by can see it, but they can't see the house.

It's the first point of contact for what may lie down the long and winding road.

It's a big box, the kind that can have a whole package stuffed inside it, and a few days ago it was in a sorry state of disarray.

Faux roof and cement board backing

At one time it had little black painted lats of wood on it which worked good till someone with a beer bottle wanted to toss the empty out of their car window before they hit town.

That was the downhill spiral of the wood, and one by one over the course of a year each lat fell or started to hang off the box leaving people to wonder if down the long driveway you would find a house with boarded up windows.

Notice the chicken?

So I got this brilliant idea to adhere landscape rocks to the mailbox and then it would match our stone pillars. 

I wasn't aiming for perfection,  I just wanted it a bit tougher so it could handle someone elses aim or anything that's thrown at it - literally.

Not spending any money was a top priority, so reusing what we had was necessity.   At any time the mailbox could fall victim to teenage pranks, and I didn't want to cry over an empty beer bottle that my fancy, pricey, new mailbox needed to be replaced.

All was going well....

I made a high tech tool out of a soda lid to use as a spreader for the glue.

The cement was mixed and poured over the rocks as a grout....

A trusty paint stirrer stick was used by Brawn to sculpt away excess cement....

And when I turned my back the man decided to use up some old paint on the mailbox roof without consulting me.

What the helll?  I know this was a low expectation project, but I wasn't going for little red barn mister! 

I didn't hold back, I let my feelings out...... I exclaimed that it looked like schidtt.

Lovingly of course.

I was promptly handed a paint brush.

Then, much like this post, the mailbox project came to a screeching halt.

Done or not, dirty rocks, red roof and all, it needed to be returned to it's post since it had already missed a couple days of mail delivery.

But first I got out a can of gray spray paint.

And now, because it's so much easier to haul a bucket of water 1/4 mile to wash the rocks instead of when it was right up by the house, I will pack up a scrub brush, take some gray paint, and stand on the road washing and painting for all the world to see.

And that has me mad.

Why?  Because I like to paint in my jammies. 

Guess I have to get dressed for this task. 

The mailbox and me will be back in a day or two, both of us dressed, but only one being revealed.

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