Martha Approving
FORT WAYNE -This is it. You’ve found the apartment of your dreams. Whatever your current decorating style is, may it be Moroccan, frat-boy dorm room, mid-century modern, it no longer matters once you step inside Matthew Gallaway’s apartment.
The third-floor West Central Neighborhood apartment is filled with white china cabinets displaying antique milk glass and Jadite; Jamie Oliver Food Processor in the kitchen; and home-grown hydrangea arrangements in vintage apothecary jars next to the perfectly made bed. Affectionately known by Gallaway and his friends as The Penthouse.
Mentally, you have already moved in. It is enough to convince you to abandon any plans you have of perfecting your own home.
I’m good at decorating and gardening, so my apartment and my garden are creative outlets for me. I’m not an artist, I can’t paint or draw. Gallaway says.
Known to fans as The Bon Savant, he chronicles his decorating, cooking and cleaning adventures, most of them based in and around his apartment. Gallaway, an event planner at All Occasion Party Rentals, launched a lifestyle blog in February.
Many of whom view buying a house as the final commitment, the big one, the real estate version of a marriage. Not surprisingly, Gallaway’s readership includes several apartment dwellers. Not that Gallaway isn’t aware of the downside to living in an apartment. Cabinet space? Apparently it wasn’t necessary when the building was designed. There is no yard to speak of (Gallaway keeps a garden at his parents’ house). His kitchen is small (the stove, fit for a Barbie).
His first apartment featured dingy white walls and industrial gray carpet, and it stayed that way until he moved out. But living in apartments since he was a teenager has taught Gallaway to adapt. He didn’t have to accept the limits of his apartment. It was not until he moved into an apartment on Berry Street, an apartment that had virtually one cupboard only, and that that it hit him. His first move was to buy shelves and begin displaying his dishes, pasta and spices, rather than trying to cram them into cabinets and hide them.
Like an old friend. His style, he says, is inspired by Martha Stewart. Martha, he calls her. He appreciates her straightforward manner, her belief that you can do it yourself and find the easiest way to get the best results. Filed away in binders, Gallaway keeps tear sheets – “for inspiration,” he says – from Stewart’s magazines.
It had possibilities, he thought. Gallaway fell in love with “The Penthouse” after laying eyes on hardwood floors, French doors and balcony. It also had unpainted walls, a dirty kitchen and fluorescent lighting, which made everyone – even children – look like Soviet prison guards. Gallaway says. I felt unsettled. The first thing I did was replace the light bulbs. It was just a little scary. The walls had not been painted in years. Since then, he has documented easy projects: painting a medicine cabinet and dusting jade plants (with a paintbrush!), hanging clustered picture frames and collecting china. “Try something new (almost) every day,” Is his guiding philosophy, he said.