Hanging a mailbox on a stone house sounds like an easy task that anyone who has ever hung a mirror or art can manage in just a few minutes, right?
But, a home with a stone facade offers the same kind of challenge as a home built with block interior walls: it’s way harder to hang decorative items like art, mirrors, and mailboxes.
However, it’s not impossible to decorate a wall made with brick or stone. Just requires a different set of tools and a little bit more patience and clean-up when the job is done.
The mailbox challenge
It sounds simple: attach a mailbox next to an entry door. For those who live in cities and towns, everyone has a mailbox out front next to their front door and old homes are often built with brick or stone. In this case, there are a few extra challenges.
- The existing mailbox might be the world’s most pathetic mailbox installation.
- A really “lumpy” and hard stone facade.
The mailbox solution
In order to install the new mailbox, we needed to gather a few tools and supplies:
- New mailbox
- Rotary hammer
- Extra tough Milwaukee rotary hammer bits
- Screws that bite
In short, we laid out a comfortable mailbox height for the homeowner, the USPS letter carrier, and for the sign to be viewed from the street. (USPS has guidelines for hanging mailboxes.)
After that, it took just a few pilot holes and some judiciously snugged up screws to set the mailbox. Now the mailbox is hung on the stone house, and ready to receive mail.
Bonus project: Attach a decorative welcome sign
The long, vertical sign is hung like a picture, so there is no support on the bottom.
To keep it from blowing off the screw in the wind, we zip-tied it to the screw.
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