After being in lockdown for a few months I was looking forward to escaping the city of Ghent (even though I love my city). So when a friend of mine, active in the field of typewriter art, suggested accompanying her during a short trip for a little repair job for one of her typewriters to the city of Gouda, I immediately said 'yes!'. On Sunday morning, armed with map and cookies we left Antwerp and drove to Wie van Zoet Hout store in Gouda, the place to buy and repair typewriters. After arriving at the industry zone near the city of Gouda called GOUDasfalt and enjoying a cup of coffee with a cool name 'Man met bril koffie' and a delicious home-baked cake we headed to the blue warehouse.

Wie van Zoet Hout had opened its doors in 2015 and is run by George & Rianne who specializes in selling and most importantly repairing the typewriters. If you wish to buy a typewriter and need advice, or is the button of your typewriters not working properly or you need a specific ribbon for that particular model or you need a typewriter with that specific typeface, this is where you should be to get it all fixed. Btw, besides a huge variety of typewriters, you can also find a nice selection or various retro-vintage objects as well as postcards typed on the spot.

After entering this spacious 2-floor warehouse we were kindly greeted by George & Rianne who immediately made us feel comfortable. We stumbled upon plenty of typewriters collected on the massive wooden table, ready to be tested and what we of course did.

The shop is also offering typewriters for rent, just in case you need it for an event or a tv show. Like for instance a rare example of a Soviet typewriter 'Moscow' from 1965 (!) with Cyrillic layout which has been repaired by George & Rianne. It has a two-position line spacer, full keyboard (all numbers and all 33 letters). Well, I couldn’t resist typing on it :) You can also find a collection of typewriters manuals on their website.

We handed over the typewriter that needed some good care to Rianne and were told to come back in 2 hours (while normally the revising of the typewriters is usually on appointment). Well, the perfect opportunity to stroll through the lovely city of Gouda. Spotting some type and lettering on our way, enjoying cheese soup and nice weather made our day complete. By the time we got back, the typewriter already received a good treatment (it has never been so clean and working so smooth) and it was time for us to go home. Thank you George & Rianne. We will be back!

more pictures here

Btw, if you are planning to visit Ghent anytime soon, you might be interested in visiting Limerick bookstore which holds a collection of 160 typewriters of the Dutch writer Willem Frederik Hermans. Hermans' collection of typewriters was kept in the Scryption museum in Tilburg until 2011. But as it had to close down due to savings the collection moved to Ghent.