A little peek at sister's house

I bought my property in 1977 and finished my house in 1979. In the early 1990s I sold pieces of my land to two of my four sisters. I'm the oldest. My late husband and I built a rock house for the second sister. She lives in Iowa where we were all born, but usually spends the winters here. (About 5 years ago the third sister, along with her daughter, started a house of their own near my first sister's house.)

This first sister built her house without any outside help (unlike me), all while working as an archaeologist for the Center for Big Bend Studies in Alpine. I dropped by today to take her some tomatoes from our garden and snapped a few quick pics. Didn't give her a chance to straighten up cords, hoses, or anything. She said it's OK to post the photos I took. One can sure dream up a lot of innovative creations given enough time. By comparison, I hired help and rushed through getting mine down. Didn't enjoy the process.

Here is a little of the rock and fortified adobe house that has been 22 years in the making.

That isn't a crack in the walkway, it's an artistic conduit for water to cross the walkway and not puddle there. In the background is the first "module" she built, which is now guest quarters, that she lived in while building the main part of the house.

Above is the doorway into the first module. The main house is off the picture to the right. All this overlooks the arroyo that brings water to my tanks a mile upstream.

Below in the main house is the stairway between dining area and sitting room. Bathroom and kitchen off photo to right.

Above is an interesting section of hallway between the sitting room (which doubles as an extra guest room) and her bedroom. The doorway leads to a patio above the arroyo.

This is the outside of one of the sitting room windows beside that patio. Background is the first module. Notice the arroyo, barely visible on the right, and that far mountain way in the background. My place is on this side of that mountain. You've undoubtedly seen it in the background of many of my photos from the oasis.

And last, for now, here is the bathtub in the main bathroom. She is just finishing it. Temporarily, she had a fiberglass tub there, but finally is doing the finishing up projects. It was very difficult for her to cut out the fiberglass tub so she could tile it. 

There are so many more awesome areas and things in her house that this is just a tiny sample. One of these days I'll take more photos of it.