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DIY front yard landscaping and letterbox for our new property.
Steps
Step 1
Started with a dirt patch and a trailer load of road base from a mate. After working my way through the soil to remove any large rocks etc. I found that half the yard was riddled with palm tree roots from next door. This took a substantial effort to remove completely (by hand) and I had to relocate the road base (by hand) around the yard to clear everything.
Step 2
Once the soil was prepped, we laid charcoal pavers as a hedge border and a slight retaining wall to create two levels. First time cutting pavers with the grinder and first time laying pavers at all.
Step 3
We got a ton of garden soil delivered for the front section and hedge areas, then hired a compactor to harden the base for artificial turf inside the hedging. After having had actual turf in a similar layout at a previous property, it’s more trouble than it’s worth to maintain in a small area, so we invested in a quality Australian-made artificial turf, which doesn’t get super hot in the sun.
The letterbox was a DIY project with my wife and made with ply, hardwood posts, decking timber ripped into strips, Dulux Weathershield and Exterior Marine Varnish.
Step 4
Laying the turf after cutting out a circular section in the middle for a Magnolia. Mock Orange hedging in with some Redgum hardwood mulch. All planted areas are on Reticulation watering with drip irrigation,
Step 5
Front area mulched and planted with Lotus Flash for ground cover. All up, with the cost of everything other than the letterbox, this project cost us about $2000.
Unfortunately I didn’t spend as much time getting photos of the letterbox build, but essentially I chose to do three hardwood posts (one at either end of the high section and the third at the outer end of the low section (hope that makes sense). I just used 90x45 hardwood for this rather than full size posts, as the weight of the letterbox isn’t significant.
Have a think about what you’ll make your strips/slats out of then design your letterbox body using the strip width as your guide (multiply by the strip width up to a suitable width. That way you can just use a scrap strip to space your slats as you attach them and it should match up perfectly to the width of the letterbox. We also designed a little open section at the top of the shorter section to put some succulents in pots, but entirely optional.
The letterbox itself was front Milkcan, but there are several suitable options at Bunnings as well. You just have to include that in your design with a suitable gap in the slats to fit it, as well as opening space for the lid (I had to fix this at short notice as I didn’t allow for it initially).
Once you’ve worked out your dimensions, I used l used some exterior pine ply that I had a couple of good sized pieces of and cut them to shape (like a thick L), then screwed and glued the first one to the posts. You would probably be fine with just screws but I love a good bit of over engineering and had quite a lot of timber glue around. Remember to sit the ply proud of the tops of your posts by the same thickness as the ply, as you use some small sections to close in the top and bottom.
Once that was done I lightly sanded and varnished the inside of the ply with two coats of marine varnish to seal it in case of water ingress, then sealed the inside of the other piece of ply and screwed and glued it on.
I then put the top and bottom sections on to seal the “box” shape in, but on the bottom used a small bit of formply I had as I ran out of the exterior. I also left the bottom bit shorter and left a gap at each end so any water that did sneak in had a way to drain out.
For the slats, I bought a bunch of 19mm thick silver top ash decking and ripped it into 19mm strips, then working very methodically I traced out the slat positions on the front and sides, before then using narrow masking tape to block a section of each slat tracing to allow me to glue them on as well as nail. After painstakingly applying the tape, I then painted the box in Monument Weathershield with two coats.
Once this was partially dry I removed all the tape and left it to dry properly. After that I simply put a thin bead of wood glue down each bare section and then nailed each slat on, using scrap to space them out and a cordless brad nailer.
To finish it off, I did two coats of the marine varnish with a sprayer to protect the bare timber and then mounted it with some quick set concrete.
Hope that all makes sense!
Hello @lhlifestyle
Thank you very much for sharing that extra information in regards to your letter box build. I'm sure our members will find it very useful.
Eric
