Server :: FTP Into The Server Via Dreamweaver?

I started tinkering with a Linux server setup at home. Mainly just web serving and FTP for now. It's running apache2 and vsftpd. I signed up for a dyndns.org account so I can do web work while away from the house.

I would like to FTP into the server via Dreamweaver to upload files once done working with them. Then use a browser to http to the live page to see the outcome.

Well, I ran into a couple of issues:

1. Connection via FTP worked fine, but could not show the contents of /var/www in Dreamweaver. I did some research and sounded like a rights/permissions issue. So I made my account part of www-data group and made www-data owner of everything under /var/www. That allowed me to display the contents of /var/www in Dreamweaver, work with the files, uploade them, etc.

2. Then issue #2 came up: when I opened the browser and tried to display the page, I received a 403 Forbidden message from the server. So I changed the ownership of /var/www back to root. That allowed me to display the page in the browser, but now FTP is broken in Dreamweaver.

So I need to find "balance to the force" here. How can I configure /var/www so that it allows me to upload/update/erase/create files while still allowing a browser to display the page(s) of the site?