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downtown livin g RENOVATED HOME FILLED

As you step through the cheery aqua front door of Judy Meriwether’s lovingly renovated home on Jarvis Street in the historic residential district of Canton, you know immediately why she calls it her happy place.

Bright sunlight streams in through windows, illuminating a space filled with soothing colors accented by Judy’s favorite color— which just happens to be aqua—warm hardwood floors and thoughtfully chosen antiques mingled with family pieces.

The home is also filled with memories of Judy’s late husband, Bill Meriwether, who died in January 2020 after a long illness with cancer. The couple, who were high school sweethearts and married in 1971, decided in 2017 to leave their long-time home in south Florida after learning that Bill was ill and relocate to Canton, where their son and his family lived.

Judy, who graduated from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton and taught kindergarten and elementary classes for 40 years before retiring, was immediately drawn

With Happy Memories

to the house when she first saw it during the couple’s search for a new home.

The house was in deplorable condition and had been vacant for five years after being repossessed by the U.S. Department of Housing Urban. But Judy knew from the moment she saw it the house was where she wanted to live. The bidding by HUD for the property was conducted in rounds, and the couple did not get it.

But later, a nonprofit in Woodstock which was able to bid earlier in the process and bought the house, contacted them and asked if they were still interested.

“Bill looked at me and asked me if I still wanted it, and I immediately told him I did. I knew this was meant to be our home,” Judy remembers. “And I was right; we were happy here, and I love this home and all the memories of our time here together.”

The couple immediately began an extensive remodel that lasted about a year and were able to move into their new home in 2018.

The house was built in the late 1920s or early 1930s in the popular Craftsman architectural style of the time period. According to information from History Cherokee, the house is located in the turn of the century and early twentieth-century residential section of Canton, which includes East Main Street and the homes off of it.

Jarvis Street is in the area of residential construction that took place from 1910 until 1930 and occurred along and off East Main Street. Today, the street is a mixture of residential, office, and professional uses, which has spurred the rehabilitation of several of the homes along this street.

During the renovation of the Meriwether home, parts of the house were in such disrepair that replacement was necessary. The ceilings in the main living area had been dropped (or lowered), and that was removed. New ceilings were installed that replicated the originals.

The house has two sets of double fireplaces that were covered over when the couple bought the house. Judy and Bill had the paneling that covered the fireplaces torn off. Today, these exposed brick fireplaces are centerpieces of the home.

The front bedroom had been painted black, but today is a beautiful, light, airy room filled with a mixture of family furniture pieces and vintage finds, including a charming white iron bed. A white chest in the room was Judy’s grandmother’s, and now displays Judy’s mother’s milk glass collection.

In the kitchen, the sink that was in the home when the couple purchased the house was reused, giving a vintage feel of the time period of the house to the space. Shelves display Judy’s grandmother’s beautiful aqua glass canning jars, and more aqua accent pieces brighten the space. An old vintage wall telephone the couple purchased six weeks after they married hangs on the kitchen wall.

Other special family pieces are scattered throughout, such as a cedar chest given to Judy’s mother by her parents, who for many years owned a furniture store in Ashland, Kentucky. “Without our daughter-in-law and son, Joy and Scott Meriwether, the restoration would not have taken place. They worked countless hours researching, finding fixtures, and all kinds of needed elements, giving us choices to make the home what it is today,” Judy explains. While Judy still misses her late husband, she is happy they had time together in her newly renovated home to make memories she will cherish forever.

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