I can't say that I can help you, but I do remember having one of these in a house when I was a kid. I can see now that they might pose a safety concern and they also wouldn't be very energy efficient in hot or cold weather.

I can't wait to hear what other people suggest! What a wonderful 'remnant' of a previous time.

I've searched on houzz and various other sites, but can't find ideas .... any suggestions are welcomed

Is it at a side door near flower beds? You could seal it from the inside and then use it to store small gardening tools in, handy to the garden.

its located on side of the house, near the back door. Guess it was a handy spot for the milkman!
Thanks for that idea!

Many homes in my neighborhood had this problem, including my own. Our home is sided so we insulated the opening and drywalled on the inside. Outside the house was resided, so the opening was covered over. Neighbors with a brick home had a piece of wood cut to fit the opening on the outside. It was painted in a color that blended well with the brick. Then the edges were sealed with caulking to prevent moisture from getting in. Finally a piece of decorative metalwork was hung on there to give it visual interest. Just make sure you don't put the screws right through the wood, or you may have leakage problems.

thanks for that idea ....

We still have one of these, next to the side entrance of our 1920's brick home. Previous owners sealed and drywalled the inside. So the box is only on the outside and simply creates a little storage cubby. I can't say we use it often, but I kind of like the look of it as a remnant of history.

Not really - the best we had was to put a light inside the box (solar light) so it would help at night - kind of decorative too. Let us know if you come up with anything else.

I have no suggestion for your dilemma, but I fondly remember that when we were locked out of the house, my parents had my little brother crawl through it to unlock the house from the inside. And the milk was delivered by a horse drawn truck, until 1968, in small-town Canada.

This home is located in a small , Northern Ontario home too and we still have the glass bottles that the milk came in plus the wooden crates to carry them. Our daughter uses them as decorative touches in the home - they look nice.

I know this story is old, but this would be great to have your recycling bin right below it outside! Just open it and drop your recycling in!

Please post a picture of the existing milk box?

I will

Wow, this brings back memories! As kids we would open the door and "call" for our friends to come out to play. Mom's loved it because we didn't interrupt their work to answer the door.

My grandparents used theirs as their mailbox. Packages stayed nice and dry, large envelopes stayed flat, and they didn't have to crawl on the floor of the coat closet (where the mail slot inexplicably dropped) to retrieve their letters. They had a security latch on the inside door.