About me

I'm Cristovao Verstraeten. I run a pleasant view from Amsterdam-West.

I grew up in Brussels, French at home, Flemish school from kindergarten on. English came later, from music and Flemish TV. Thirteen years in Amsterdam now. I live with my wife, our daughter, and Gadget my cat. The Brussels accent is the one thing I really miss from Belgium.

For clients in this part of the city, that linguistic mix is practical. Most of the work happens in Dutch. Some happens in English because the business is expat-run or because the supplier is on the other side of the language line. French shows up rarely, but I can switch when it does.

What I do here

I keep websites running for small businesses around Amsterdam-West and the Jordaan. The work is mostly the steady stuff: email that needs fixing, a domain that needs renewing, a small content update, a printer that suddenly refuses to connect. A new site every now and then, or a rebuild. Most weeks it's the daily texture of keeping a small business's online side calm.

a pleasant view started eleven years ago as a blog documenting modern art exhibits in Brussels. It turned into website work when I started building the blog itself, and into a business when I moved to Amsterdam. I came to web work sideways. The websites stuck.

How I work

I keep the client list small on purpose. The kind of support I do well needs attention I can actually give, and the work suits me better as a steady local practice than as scale. Twelve regulars is roughly what fits.

Most of the work happens locally. I can answer the phone, drop by when something needs an eye, and not disappear for weeks at a stretch. Remote can work when the work is well-defined and communication stays clear, but local is the default and the preference.

The Baseline side

When the local work is steady, the side gig is Eleventy Baseline. It's an open-source plugin I started six months ago to give myself the foundation I kept wishing I had. Building it in public was the natural shape of the project. Other developers and small agencies can use it; some of them hire me directly for the deeper work.

It's a side gig in the way a musician has gigs. The local client work is the steady part; Baseline is the work I do because I want to. They feed each other.

Where I draw the line

I'm not a full IT helpdesk. I don't do 24/7 monitoring or large infrastructure projects. I prefer to say no early when something isn't a fit, rather than say yes and disappoint later.

When something is in scope, I work calmly and tell you what I'm doing. That covers most of it.

Next step

If any of the above fits what you're looking for, send a short note.