The Wanderlust Lady and the Door to Door Salesman - 29

February 3, 2013

On Sunday, I spent my day composing my letter to the Manx Museum, which I have copied below.
 

Dear Sirs:

I have recently acquired four small water colour paintings by John Millar Nicholson.
They are about 19 x 14 cm. The oldest dates from 1876 and I think is of Castle Rushen. The next two date from 1893, and I think are of Douglas Harbour with a little boatful of children going out in one of them. The fourth is from 1898 and again of Douglas Harbour.

I wonder if you might know of anyone who would be interested in purchasing them. At
the moment, I cannot afford a trip to the Isle of Man to show them to you in person. And I do not possess a camera, so cannot send you photos of them either. However, if someone were interested in purchasing them, I would try to borrow a camera so they could see
what they are like.

They are not in perfect condition, and I have been told that they have quite a lot of
foxing, and will need restoration. I do not have the funds to do this. They are all in their original frames.

Yours sincerely,

Stan Barber

I addressed it and posted it off in the box down the road before I changed my mind. I
wouldn't hurt to find out what they thought about it. I didn't need to sell them, but it would be useful for me, or for the Mills to know what they might be worth.

That done, I decided to spend the rest of the day exploring the countryside, and went
again on Ridge Road, but not all the way to Lyme Park – turning off and wandering through the fields and footpaths in that area, and again having a beer and pub lunch at the Romper.

The publican told me that the pub was very old – and originally was three hatters
cottages, which are now knocked together. Apparently this area was the centre of the hatting industry in the early 19^th century. He said that there were hundreds of hat manufacturers in the Stockport area, mostly done in small cottages and in the
1880's Stockport exported six million hats a year.

When I got home, I decided to call on my neighbour, Fred, across the road, and see if I
could borrow his ladder, so that I could get on with my external painting next week, if the weather permitted. He was working on his house at the time, but stopped to chat for a few minutes. I asked if I could see what he had done so far to alter his house.

“This used to be two small rooms,” he said, showing me the living room/dining room.
“I replastered it all, put down a new carpet, but mostly the rest of it was okay the way it was.”

He then took me into the large kitchen. “With this I tore out the old kitchen and put in
a completely new one, and the sprung wooden floor is new. I plan to put a conservatory on the side here. Originally I was going to do a two story extension and have the foundations all down for that, but I got tired and changed my mind after about a year into the job. But at least with having a conservatory I'll be making use of the foundations.”

“This is the south facing wall, so you'll probably get lots of sun in there.”

“That's the idea.”

“Then upstairs I changed a pokey 3^rd bedroom into an en suite for the main bedroom. I created a new room over the kitchen extension, and that is now the 3^rd bedroom. And as with the other rooms, I re-plastered and redid the wiring throughout. And I re-roofed it too – although for the main part I reused the same tiles.

“You said something about putting some work my way when I'm finished with my
job. Did you mean in this house?”

“The bedrooms upstairs need painting – all except the one I'm using myself. I
just do white everywhere.”

“That's what I'm doing over there too.”

“It means whoever buys it can repaint it to whatever colour they choose, and the
undercoat is done for them. Could I come over and see what your house is like? I understand the owners will be putting it on the market soon.”

“Yes, the plan is for that to happen in early March. Sure, come on over now, and I'll
give you a tour.”

So Fred came across and looked at both the layout of the house, and the paint job that
I'd been doing.

“You need to be more careful with your preparation,” he said. “It looks sloppy to
see the chipped paint job underneath.”

“I haven't done that much,” I protested.

“No, but where you have done it, it sticks out like a sore thumb. If I were you, I'd
sand down a bit and repaint those bits.

“What's upstairs?” he asked.

“Just a small attic room – with a velux window and flooring but no walls.”

“Could I go up and just have a look?”

“I guess so,” I said. I didn't really want him seeing the trunk – but couldn't think of any reason to deny him seeing it. So I pulled down the ladder for him, and he had a quick look upstairs.

“Pretty sparce to list as a room,” he commented when he came down again. “But the
basic shape is good and the head height means that it could be made into a bigger room with a dormer window at each end. And maybe it could be made bigger with an extension on this side – and then you could make two rooms upstairs. It certainly has potential.”

“You seem pretty keen. Would you really consider buying it?”

“Seems to me just the sort of place that I might move to next,” he said with a laugh.
“But I have to sell mine first and I won't be ready to do that by March. Maybe if yours takes awhile to sell, and mine goes straight away, I might be in with a chance. Houses are not doing well at the moment.”

“Should I tell the owners that you might be interested?”

“It wouldn't hurt to let them know, but I can't buy it while I still own this one, so don't play it up too much. Did they give you any indication of what sort of price they want for it?”

“My step-dad valued it for them and he suggested £175,000 once it was nicely
decorated and the garden was tidied up.”

“That's a bit more than I'd pay for it – but estate agents always beef up prices when
they're trying to get people to hire them. Anyway, thanks for the tour. You can come over and get my ladder now. But I don't want it left outside. You don't seem to have any shed or garage.”

“No, that's okay though. I can put it in the kitchen or someplace for the time being. I should be done with it by the end of the week.”

So I went back to Fred's' house with him, and he lent me his ladder, which made me
nervous just looking at it. But it must have held him when he climbed up on his roof, so I expected it would work okay for me too.

“If you're doing the fascias, don't take up too big a pot of paint. You won't have any
place to balance it up there. Oh, and you might think of using a small roller brush on a pole – so you can cover as much area as you can with the the minimum of moving the ladder around.”

“Thanks for the advice. I'll sure be glad when that job is over. Thanks again for the
loan.”

“Good luck to you,” he said and we shook hands.