PHOTO: Beautiful Brick Column Mail Boss Installation

Les Bowles from Trophy Club Texas was kind enough to share a photo of his beautiful new brick column featuring a black Mail Boss mailbox. He was inspired by another brick column installation we shared here, and even used the photo as a template for his brick pattern.

He writes:

“Here’s my new Mail Boss and the brick mason who built it. We copied the style of an example of a column style build on your website and it came out great. Instead of the magnet flag attachment that someone suggested [here] (a great idea) on your website, we embedded 3″ stainless steel screws to hold the supplied flag and holder in a vertical mortar joint.”

We thanked him for sharing, and asked him to elaborate on the project so that other customers interested in a column installation might garner some insights.

Les elaborates:

“I should clarify that this design example is shown on your website in the Column Installation guide. It’s the second picture shown. However, it did take us several hours to build using an expanded view of it on my iPad so that we could see all the brick cuts clearly.

It’s on a 27″ x 27″ poured concrete base that is 5″ thick sitting on compacted soil. 240 bricks were delivered and I have 12 left over.

I removed the flag holder from the Mail Boss and sealed the box holes with “Goop” (available at all big box hardware stores) to keep any moisture out. I mounted the removable base [Fast-Trak Mounting Plate] on a 1/2″ piece of marine plywood with 2″ coated deck screws, put the Mail Boss back on its base, and attached the plywood to a brick shelf built around all four sides inside the column using exterior grade construction adhesive. Because of the length of the several base mounting screws, the Mail Boss cannot be pulled out forward off the shelf and out of the column.

We laid the brick shelf at the bottom of the 12th course level using fill brick pieces and mortar.

I checked it today and the flag holder is solid. The magnet-mounted flag one of your customers suggested is a great idea, but this method works well also.

Thanks for a great product!”

If you plan on doing a column installation like this, feel free to reach out to us for additional support or questions. We recommend also searching for column mailbox installations on YouTube, as there are so many great DIY videos out there. As always, thanks for sharing your #MyMailBoss project!