Day 4: Blackout Friday

We woke up to a power outage across the island. 

The Newfoundland portion of the province has a population of 483,663 and the majority were without electricity. It was also a very cold wintery day.

Newfoundland Power could not say when power would be restored.

CBC One from St. John's was the only station on the air, able to broadcast to the whole province because the station has emergency backup power.

Weather updates, information and open lines, people were calling in from across NL, reporting on their local areas, asking questions, looking for information, and recounting their stories. "Wish I was there for the party!" one ex-pat Newfoundlander commented from away.

 Apparently, the Holyrood thermal generating station had shut down because of the blizzard in St. John's -- 132 km winds and 82 cm of snow (33 inches) overnight.

Corner Brook was silent. No lights, no radios, no refrigerator hum... no internet.

Cell phone service was super slow.

A little eerie and scary. The silence was really odd.

I was concerned about the house because it was - 8C and, obviously, the furnace was not kicking in. 

All schools and the university were closed for the day. 

It was a gorgeous day in Corner Brook. Brilliant blue sky, sunshine and white snow.

We walked to the house, turned on the taps to make sure the pipes wouldn't freeze and worked all day.

I started with the dining room. More carpet removal.

Before. The natural light was nice with no electricity in the city, especially reflected off the snow outside.

More pulling up carpet. More underlay.

Wood. Another unfinished wood area in the centre, like the living room, built like this to cut down costs.

Finished. Just have to sweep up. And clean the floor (later).

Onwards and upwards...

 to the upstairs to work on a bedroom.

I began by removing the carpet from the small, back, South facing room. The light in the room is great. Lots of sunshine. I decided that this will be my bedroom.

I like waking up to brilliant sunshine and light.

More carpet. Not in good shape.

Started ripping it up in the bedroom and the upstairs landing.

Hardwood on the upstairs landing, and, in great condition.

Check it out. Before and after. The wood looks so nice!

Can someone tell me what this is? It was under the carpet, on the upstairs landing floor, just outside one of the bedroom doors. Obviously, a vent or drain of some sort but it's not very big -- 4" x 4" perhaps? Seems too small to be a vent for the hot air from downstairs. Anyway, I think it's cool.

View from the upstairs landing window.

Back to the small bedroom. Underneath the carpet and underlay, a sub-floor.

What's under the chipboard? Time to find out.

This looks interesting...

This is becoming an archeological dig.

Super old linoleum.

Crazy! Layers of vintage lino under the chipboard. How funny. Five layers, in total, each one older than the last. I guess they just kept putting new flooring right on top of the old for extra insulation.

Great patterns. A great record of historical, domestic, utilitarian, decorative arts. I love it.

Newspaper... I knew I was going to find newspaper at some point. After all, it is an old Newfoundland house. Newspapers were often used as insulation in walls and, as I now see, in floors, too!

This old Western Star is dated Jan. 15, 1955 -- 58 years old (almost to the day). It was under the top layer of green lino seen here.

Ironically, it contained an ad by Newfoundland Light & Power purporting the MODERN advantages of ELECTRICITY.

And this was just perfect, too:

HUMBER House by the River -- Where a girl could disappear... where a man could live with his secret!

That's enough work for today.