Curbside Mailboxes

Curbside mailboxes are far more than a place to pick up the usual assortment of bills, magazines, and the occasional postcard. As a design element, they're a particularly powerful tool, an easy way to define your house with some of your character, the finishing touch to a house you've made your home. That's worth remembering as you shop for a replacement, whether a snowplow or a falling tree took out your last one. Maybe, though, you're in the midst of landscaping your property. Perhaps you're just tired of that standard nine by 12 by 20 rectangle with the rounded top.

Design Ideas for Curbside Mailboxes

Your Cape Cod style house sits up from the street, and the wide shady stretch of ivy-covered bank is flanked by a stone retaining wall. Why not built a column up from the wall, at the driveway edge? What more natural a place could there be for an inset antiqued brass mailbox? It's sleek, inconspicuous, and thoroughly in keeping with the slightly formal shade landscaping.

Let's say you live in an older house, built during the heyday of the Victorian era. Whether in town or in the country, what could be more appropriate than a heavy wrought-iron style post and cast-patterned square mailbox? You might be envisioning a charming little English village, or Cape May, New Jersey along the Atlantic coastline, or a farmhouse in Ohio. Victorian style curbside mailboxes are quite popular--whether in a verdigris finish, wrought iron, or painted--for a good reason.

Of course, you might well have more of an adventuresome spirit. The idea of novelty curbside mailboxes is more appealing to you. Maybe a rooster, or calico cat, or Holstein cow mailbox would be just the thing. Perhaps you're a golf addict, or a hang-gliding enthusiast. No matter what you hobby or sense of fun, if you can't find a ready-made style mailbox to reflect it, you certainly can find an artisan to create one for you.