Setting the Stage | The Story of the New Denneweg 19, Thus Far
It Started With a Storage Unit
Annemie needed storage space. Simple as that. So she opened Funda, the Dutch property app, and started browsing for storage units. But while she was there, she did what she always did. Took a detour into the retail listings.
It was almost a hobby. Every few weeks she would browse what businesses and retail spaces were up for sale across the Netherlands. Not because she was looking for anything specific, just to keep a finger on the pulse of the market. She would save listings, watch how quickly they sold, get a feel for what was out there and what things were worth.
On the 3rd of November, a listing appeared in her feed.
A corner shop. Massive windows. Wow, what a beauty, she thought. But then she left it.
The next day, the 4th of November, it appeared again. This time it stayed with her. There was something about it.
She took it to Justin. He looked at it. They agreed it was interesting. They booked an appointment to view it and on the 7th of November, they went to take a look, more out of curiosity than anything else.
And then Annemie stood in front of the shop before they had even walked through the door, and she felt something she was not expecting. A quiet, certain feeling that this was hers. They did not even know what they were going to do with it yet.
Over an espresso afterwards, sitting with that feeling, they found the words for it. An opportunity creator. That is what they called it. And from there, everything unfolded.
What if we could bring what we are doing online into a real physical space? What if this was the stage?
And then something unexpected happened.
One hundred steps from the shop, an apartment, also for sale. The numbers aligned, in ways that felt like more than coincidence. They knew they needed to be close to the shop. And one hundred steps felt exactly right.
They packed up their big house in the countryside and moved their whole lives to Den Haag. A city Annemie and Justin had fallen in love with back when they lived there from 2017 to 2019, shortly after first arriving in the Netherlands. Coming back felt less like a move and more like a homecoming.
Fast forward to the 16th of April. They finally met the notary. They signed the papers. Denneweg 19 was theirs.
The Plan Was Simple
Famous last words.
The original roadmap was straightforward. Replace the floor. Sort the water and electricity. Move in. Quick, clean and done.
Justin ripped up that floor like it was nobody's business. Holes were drilled. The manhole cleaned up. Channeling for the pipes completed. They were ready for the inspectors, feeling organised and entirely in control.
And then the inspectors arrived.
No insulation behind the dry walling. None in the ceiling either. The entire roadmap changed in one conversation.
What they thought was going to be easy became something much bigger, much more involved and, as it turned out, much more extraordinary.
Demolition and Discovery
Behind one wall was something neither of them expected. An old European wall, raw and exposed. And immediately, the same thought. If they could save this wall, bring it back to life as an exposed brick feature, how beautiful would that be in the shop?
Justin spent hours, then days, bringing down the ceiling piece by piece, arms above his head, while the rubble from the floor above's previous construction revealed itself. Messy, dusty and deeply satisfying, because with every piece that came down came a little more height, a little more light and a little more of the space they had always imagined.
Then came Operation Clean Up. Bag after bag after bag of rubble. Justin's trusty small bucket working overtime until they eventually had to call in a full skip outside. And underneath all of that dust and debris, the floor. Finally visible again. Ready for the underfloor heating that would bring the energy label up and the space to life.
Inspecting the Great Wall
This was the wall they wanted for the shop.
As Justin put it, they were going to knock it, scratch it and tickle it. And see what falls.
And that is exactly what they did. Every inch of the exposed brick wall carefully inspected, chipped away and cleaned. What was rotten. What could stay. What needed to go. What had been hiding under the surface all along.
They had imagined a feature wall. What they found instead was something better. A character wall. Years of scars revealing themselves alongside new plasters (South African word for bandages), patches of repair holding the old brick together.
From there they could roughly count how many replacement bricks were needed. And that led to one of the most unexpectedly wonderful days of the whole renovation.
The Great Brick Hunt | Bolsward, Friesland
Finding the exact right brick turned out to be quite the adventure.
Because Denneweg 19 is a heritage building, the replacement bricks could not be just any brick. They needed to come from the same era as the building, approximately 130 years old, and match the exact size and dimensions of what was already there. Justin sent photos and measurements to supplier after supplier across the Netherlands. Nobody had it. The specific porous, characterful brick simply did not exist anywhere nearby. Until finally, a supplier up in Friesland came through.
And so they drove.
Now, it is worth knowing something about the Netherlands. Dutch culture is hyperlocal. Most people rarely travel beyond a very small radius from home. So when people heard that Annemie and Justin had driven all the way to Friesland to collect bricks, the reaction was universal disbelief. You did what? Even the man who helped them at the yard had never been to Den Haag in his life. Had heard of it. Never been.
But for two South Africans, a road trip is not a chore. It is a joy. So driving to Friesland felt less like a logistical necessity and more like a win.
The road to Bolsward takes you along one of the most remarkable stretches in the Netherlands, with the IJsselmeer on one side and the North Sea on the other. Fresh water and salt water separated by the famous Afsluitdijk, built after one of the country's most devastating floods. Driving literally on top of the divide between a lake and an ocean is, quite simply, something else.
Bolsward itself was a beautiful surprise. A former trading hub that once connected cities across the region. Its town hall. Its fountains. And the stunning Broerekerk, a 13th century church that burned down in 1980 and was given a glass roof in 2006 so the light could pour through the ruin. Now used as a venue. They stopped for lunch and took it all in.
The brick supplier was a world of its own. Fine white dust covering everything and everyone. No database, no digital system, just the collective knowledge of exactly where every brick from every demolished building lives in the yard. Somehow entirely in their heads.
Every building that gets demolished, the bricks get grouped together and cleaned by hand, with every trace of lime and sand mixture removed before they are palletised and stored. Their specific brick came from two different buildings. They chose the pile that matched the colour most closely.
They loaded three hundred bricks into the car, did not pay for the broken ones and ended up with a few spare, kept now for any future renovations. When the wall started crumbling more than expected during installation, Justin held his breath counting every single brick. They had exactly enough.
Of course they did.
The Shop Fits | A Marktplaats Find
Before a single wall came down, they were already on the hunt for special and unique pieces to bring the space to life.
A jump onto Marktplaats led them to a shop closing down in a little town called Roosendaal. Jack & Jones, a beautiful denim boutique, was selling its shop fits. Scandinavian design display units, complete with shelving, drawers, a display case and built-in spotlights. Modular. Flexible. Originally worth 15,000 euros just five years before.
On the 22nd of November they reached out. Did he have any left?
He had six. They needed six.
They drove through to view them on the 26th, fell in love immediately and arranged to pick them up on the 10th of December. He was there to help Justin disassemble everything himself, which was such a gift. Modular Scandinavian design, for a revolving stage like theirs, is everything. Built to change with them.
The right pieces. At the right time. For the right space.
The Gifts, The Lunches and The Little Moments
Not everything about a renovation is dramatic. Some of it is simply human.
They have been overwhelmed by the kindness of the people around them, gifts arriving, support pouring in from friends and community who believe in what is being built here. It has moved them more than they expected.
Lunch has looked different every day. Sometimes a fancy cheese platter at home. Sometimes a sandwich and a Coke sitting outside the shop watching the people of Denneweg walk by. And then one afternoon, mid-sandwich and mid-Coke, a tour group came past. The tour leader stopped right in front of the shop and began sharing its history with the group.
He pointed up at the striking wooden storefront, built between 1916 and 1927 for a cigar shop named Sigarenmagazijn J. van Thuyl. He spoke about the rich wood carvings on the facade, the sculpted heads on the frieze referencing tobacco cultivation and trade with the Dutch East Indies. One head featuring a blencong, a traditional Javanese lamp or wrapped head covering. Others depicting Southeast Asian cultural headwear, a remnant of the era's specialised colonial goods trade. He shared that the storefront is protected today as an official municipal monument in The Hague. Then he looked over and said, sorry to interrupt your lunch.
They sat there quietly amazed. The shop is on a tourist route. One day, the hope is that those same people will not just stop outside but walk through the door.
Sometimes a Margarita to mark a win, sometimes a coke. Sometimes simply a glass of red at the end of a long day. The time is always taken. Every single win deserves to be marked, no matter how small.
And then there are the unexpected moments that make you remember why you started. The sweet old Dutch gentleman whose curiosity got the better of him and who peeked through the front door one afternoon, saying mooi dingetjies, mooi dingetjies (beautiful little things). The discovery of Roger Rabbit, clear as day, in the exposed raw brickwork. Art hiding in the walls, waiting to be found.
At &Mie the belief is that art is everywhere. Denneweg 19 keeps proving it right.
What Is Coming Next
The demolishing is done. Now comes the building.
Fixing the wall. Fixing the floor, with plenty of repair work needed before the new floor can even be laid. Fixing the insulation. Fireproofing throughout. Installing the ceiling and everything that comes after.
From here on, it is all about building up what this is going to become.
Denneweg 19, 2514 CC, Den Haag sits on one of the most beautiful and characterful streets in the city. A street that has long been home to independent food spots, fashion boutiques, beauty parlours, wine bars, art galleries, antique stores and cultural associations like the Kunstkring. A neighbourhood where art, culture and creativity are not an afterthought but part of the very fabric of the community. A street that belongs to the independents, the creatives and the ones who do things their own way. No big chains. Just character.
And very soon it will be home to &Mie.
A physical space. A creative community. A revolving stage where great brands meet bold makers and where the most extraordinary things happen when the two come together.
Follow the full renovation series on the YouTube channel and on Instagram @_andmie. And sign up to the newsletter to be the first through the door when the doors open.
The stage is set. The curtain is rising. And this is just the beginning.
&Mie · Denneweg 19 · 2514 CC · Den Haag @_andmie · www.andmie.com