I hadn’t planned on mentioning it, but we spent most of last week vacationing on Wellesley Island in the Thousand Islands. I was relaxed from the grind immediately, and we spent the days with friends and our kids doing crazy amounts of nothing and allowing our freckles to connect, which is just what I needed.
When we left to drive home, we dropped in on Boldt Castle and showed ourselves around. It was a pretty badass self-guided tour. While I had never been, the property on Heart Island has been partially restored in the last few decades to a state in which it was left in 1904, super remarkable. We left wondering mostly how much money one has to have in order to have a 127 room castle constructed on a private island.
I didn’t take many photos of the mind-blowing architecture at the castle, I’m sure you can find great ones if you snoop around online, but this one room in the basement was filled with barrels of assorted tiles that were packaged in sawdust, remnants of the original tile supply that was used in the 1900 construction, and I couldn’t help but want to share it. Seeing a room full of barrels of tiles covering more square footage than our living room was amazing.
Also, as a mental note for myself and for anyone else needing to achieve a killer coastal staining technique, I really liked the treatment of the cedar on the boathouse. Looked old and weathered from afar, looked masterfully tinted up close.
A la, from afar, demonstrating a pattern that would mimic natural wear on cedar:
2 Comments
Swoon-worthy tour of the materials in the castle. Its funny how barrels of tile and cedar could be so entrancing, but when I saw your photos I imagined myself there, drinking in the moment, wanting to touch each individual barrel of tile, of memory, of possibility. And that cedar treatment is gorgeous to me now, but I would have overlooked it years ago. =D Thank you for posting.
Glad you enjoyed the experience, Yvonne!