Once again I have run up against a term in a nineteenth-century novel that I don’t understand. A female character is described as “sanding” her kitchen floor in a decorative pattern. I believe she used a can of sand in the process, or something like, but it was clearly not the modern definition of sanding with a machine. Does anyone know what the author is describing?
I believe she used the sand to scratch in a deliberate pattern, which was probably an improvement over the dinged up and randomly scratched pattern she had.
Floors in such places, at such times, were pretty rough. She was making an improvement, but it is all relative.
Remember, only 30 years ago, contact paper was considered a cabinet upgrade.
Um, no.
I’m pretty sure that it refers to the spreading of a layer of sand on the kitchen floor. This served as a floor covering during colonial days. The sand absorbed whatever grease and soot landed on it and then was swept away and replaced with clean sand.
The character in the book would most likely be using a broom or a comb-like rake to create a decorative pattern in the sand. This might be done for show, but, of course, it only lasted as long as it wasn’t trod upon.
I think VerWinterbottom is correct as to what is being described here. What I can’t understand is how the sand didn’t get trodden all over the house by anyone who went into the kitchen, given how sticky and pernicious sand is.
From “Forgotten Household Crafts” by John Seymour:
“Up until the nineteenth century most kitchen floors were made of beaten earth. Such a floor was usually swept with a besom broom until it became hard as concrete, but it could not be scrubbed with water the way that a tiled floor, for example, can be scrubbed. . . . In earlier days most kitchen and dairy floors were sanded and so, often, were halls and stairs. Once a week perhaps the sand would be swept out, together with any dirt that had collected, and clean sand sprinkled on.”
Seymour mentions regular visits of the “sand man.”