With the new Sims 4 Castle Estate Kit now available, plenty of Simmers who’ve been building castles for years now have a good reason to renovate those old builds. Including me! I’ve built several castles over the years in The Sims 4 but one of the first ones I ever built was a build called Weselton Castle.

See how old castle builds can come to life again with The Sims 4 Castle Estate Kit!

At the time, I thought it was pretty impressive but it was built just before Vampires came out, then I updated it with the Vampires pack. Those who remember that far back will remember the limited build tools we had available to us at the time and the limited packs. I pretty much relied solely on Get Together and Vampires to put a castle together.

But with the Castle Estate Kit, I felt it was time to revisit this build and renovate the exterior. Of course, I couldn’t resist using a few other newer packs, too. So let’s get into how I renovated Weselton Castle!

Updating Weselton Castle with The Sims 4 Castle Estate

Clearly, a seven year old castle build is going to need quite a few changes made to it to bring it into the year 2024. I couldn’t wait to get started but before I started repainting walls and updating exterior trims, I needed to take a few before pictures to show you what the original castle looked like.

The Before

This was the original Weselton Castle. Or rather, version two of Weselton Castle. As I mentioned, I updated it after the Vampires game pack came out. But still pretty darn old. It doesn’t look too shabby, right? I might be biased but I think it’s pretty good for something I built back in 2017 without the selection and advanced build tools The Sims 4 has now.

Here’s a couple more pictures of the exterior courtyard to give you a little more of a detailed view of the outside.

Obviously, I was manifesting Horse Ranch six years before Horse Ranch came out because you can see my makeshift stable I cobbled together in the courtyard way back when. It’s super cute but not functional for actual horses so I’ll definitely be giving this area an upgrade when I redo the rest of the exterior.

As for the garden area, it looks pretty nice as-is, and nothing in the Castle Estate Kit would really enhance it much. I suppose the garden could get a small makeover with Cottage Living but we’ll let that be a project for another day. The main focus is the castle itself today.

The Reveal!

Alright, you’ve seen the before pictures. Now it’s time to reveal what I did using The Sims 4 Castle Estate and some other newer packs!

Ta-Da! I hardly touched the architecture at all but it’s pretty amazing what some new walls, fencing, and exterior trims can do to transform a build, isn’t it?

Although this is a new renovation of Weselton Castle, the detailed textures of the stone walls make it look much older than the original, which is exactly what I wanted. I always disliked how new and shiny this medieval castle looked. I don’t know of a single medieval castle in the real world that didn’t look weathered and worn down over nearly a thousand years without a lot of modern intervention.

As you can see, I’ve replaced all the doors and windows with The Sims 4 Castle Estate items, as well as the walls, friezes, spandrels, columns, exterior trims, and fences. It looks a lot more authentic now than it did before and it wasn’t even that much work to make those changes. I also made the exterior courtyard a lot more secure with taller walls going all around the perimeter of the castle.

This angled shot of the exterior gives off a more detailed view of how drastically this build changed with The Sims 4 Castle Estate Kit. Almost nothing was done to change the structure. Essentially, it’s just a repaint, which is pretty cool to see. I love being able to alter the whole vibe of a place with minimal effort.

Of course, the biggest difference is the stable. Although my little makeshift one was adorable, it wasn’t usable by real horses and with the Seasons pack, I didn’t want the poor horses to be housed outside with nothing over their heads to protect them from the elements. I used a combination of The Sims 4 Castle Estate and Horse Ranch to make a real, functional stable for horses. No castle is complete without knights and no knight is complete without their noble steed, so a horse stable just makes sense.

What About the Interior?

You might be wondering if this huge castle is furnished. The answer? Yes, it absolutely is. It is furnished and decorated down to the last detail so it’s move-in ready for your royal Sims and their fleet of servants. It can house much more than 8 Sims, so with mods or the For Rent pack, you could have quite a few Sims living here at once.

However, I have yet to renovate the interior with newer packs… yet! It didn’t seem to fit into this article which focuses mostly on The Sims 4 Castle Estate Kit. This kit doesn’t really come with any Buy items at all. It’s all Build stuff. So I wouldn’t have much use for it inside other than for the walls and floors.

The good news is that I do plan to update the interior and when I do, it’ll be in a part two edition of this article! Make sure to check back to see the finished renovation and download version three of Weselton Castle when it’s ready!

Do you prefer the original Weselton Castle or its most recent renovation with The Sims 4 Castle Estate? Let us know in the comments and check out our Let’s Build category for more unique builds, many of them CC-free!