Tag Archives: mid century mailbox

Hello, Modbox

In the early summer, we supported a Kickstarter project for a really awesome idea: bringing back the “sleek suburban” mailbox. My grandparents had one of those mailboxes (pictures here), so I was pretty excited to have the chance to get one back. It’s a classic mid-century design.

At the end of September, that order came through and we got our brand new Modbox. It took a few days to get everything installed as I had to set the post (truth time: I had to do it more than once as I didn’t account for the effect of the slanted post originally) but, well, it looks awesome. Originally we had planned on getting the red\black combination, but we changed to the grey\black when ordering because the red would have been a very different shade from the brick on the exterior of the house.

I’ve been talking with Greg Kelly, the guy behind the Modbox, about an add-on: a “paper box” (we get a free local weekly newspaper here, but it can’t be placed in the mailbox itself per law.) He said I’m not the only one to ask, and he’s looking to get one designed to potentially bolt in between the post with the box sitting on top of it. I’m anxious for that, too. Thanks Greg for the work making Modbox a reality!

Here are the progress shots:

 

Mid-Century Mailbox

One thing that has stymied me since before we purchased the house was to look for a new mailbox. The mailbox in front of the house currently is not only not the original, it’s the plain-jane black-plastic-on-wood-post box that you can pick up for $75 anywhere. Given our mid-century house aesthetic, I wanted something a little fancier. But interestingly, there are lots of mid-century style reproductions – light fixtures, furniture, accessories – but for some reason, there are no mid-century mailboxes. So I had been considering my options for some modern-but-compatible alternatives, but none really seemed to fit:

nubox rural_zinc_main cadrona_main_01

But, the other day I was perusing Facebook, when the folks over at Retro Renovation shared a post about a gentleman down in North Carolina who, running into the same issue, did a little research, found a classic and popular mid-century mailbox design, and came up with this beauty, called the ModBox:

Paprika-Black_large

He is currently running a Kickstarter to fund the initial production run. Needless to say I was intrigued. There is a bit more to this story, though. You see, the original (or close to original) mailbox was around until about 2002 or so, when it was replaced with the drab box that is present now. I remember the old mailbox well. What was that original box? Well, let’s take a look:

2003 house photo

Take a look at the mailbox…

Look familiar? That’s right, my grandparents had the mailbox the ModBox is based on. It was a model known as the “Sleek Suburban” by one of the manufacturers, and no place bigger than Sears had their own fancy version as well. Unfortunately when the mailbox on our house was replaced, the old one was simply put in the trash. Ouch.

But today, I signed up to get a brand spanking new and fancy ModBox of our own. Assuming it gets funded, it should be here in August (with a fancy angled mounting pole too.)

So, if you need a mailbox, head over to the ModBox site and support the project on Kickstarter!