Posts – the structural kind – are ubiquitous. They serve all kinds of purposes – often vertical support or lateral support or both. Or to function as light stands, like the one on a bridge in Amsterdam shown above. (The crown also tells you something about the ownership of the property where it’s located.)

At the SoMoToHo, we have a brick fencepost out front that serves a triple purpose – a terminus for a short brick fence, a light stand, and a spot for displaying the address numbers. Here is what it looked like (circled in red) when we bought the house:The dark streak that you see on the front of the post is the house numbers. They were small, almost too much so to be read from a passing car, and very traditional in style. Given Debra’s vision of accenting the contemporary features of the house, they just wouldn’t do (not to mention the fact that their dinkiness defeated their purpose).

So. Enter modernhousenumbers.com. While there are a lot of different sources for house numbers, the ones that Debra found on this site fit the bill perfectly. They come in a variety of sizes, styles, and finishes. We chose 8″ high, aluminum numbers with flat black powder coating in the “Palm Springs” style that stand out from the mounting surface to increase the 3-dimensional effect.

Importantly, they came with a paper mounting template. The fact of a template, alone, was crucial, since the numbers stand out from the surface on little pegs. Accurately placing them would be impossible without a template. The fact that it was paper was important because there was not enough space to mount numbers as large as these sequentially and horizontally. They had to be stacked – two on two (running them sequentially vertically just didn’t look right). So I had to do a bit of deconstruction/reconstruction on the template.

After jiggling the template so that the holes would all be in brick rather than mortar, a 3/16″ masonry bit did the trick.

The instructions called for epoxy to hold the pegs into the body of the numbers but I opted for Gorilla Glue – truly amazing stuff. And much easier than mixing epoxy.  Once the glue set, I repeated the process for the holes in the brick and inserted the pegs about 1/4″. The result: Clean. Crisp. Contemporary. And legible. And, if you recall an earlier post, they compliment the contemporary steel mailbox. The next aspect of the post that needed modifying was the light fixture on top. The one that came with the package when we bought the house wasn’t the right feel, at all. Frankly, what to replace this with was the source of significant consternation in the SoMoToHo household. Here is what Debra ended up choosing. The theory is that the upward-directed light beam will illuminate the branches of the crepe myrtle above and make the tree the focus, rather than the post. It’s a great idea, if we can only find the correct bulb for the fixture. Without the right bulb, this is a piece of sculpture, not a light fixture. I won’t belabor the details. Suffice it to say that we have one on order that may work; I’ll keep you posted.

In any event, here are a couple of shots of the post as it exists today. It’s purpose is still triple but primarily to announce the address. Effie seems to think it works quite well. What do you think?

Thanks for reading. Comments are always welcome.