North Shore · Sydney NSW
Most window treatments between Mosman and Wahroonga were made to measure for the window they hang in: pinch-pleat drapery with a separate interlining, sheers cut to the full drop of a Federation sash, romans built into the reveal. Pro Clean Corp cleans all of it on the track, in the room, so the hang the maker set is never disturbed. Sheers are dry in about an hour and heavy interlined panels in two, and you keep the use of the room while we work.
Take a pinch-pleat panel down from a nine-foot Federation window in Killara and you have committed to a half-day. The header tape is usually hand-sewn or stapled into a track that was cut to the room, the hooks sit at a spacing somebody measured once, and an interlined panel is heavy enough that two people are needed to keep the weight off the seam as it comes off. Getting it back up is the slow half: a dressed pleat has to be re-set fold by fold and tied off for a day or two before it will fall properly again. None of that is cleaning, and all of it is billable time.
So we bring the plant to the curtain instead. The panel is vacuumed first with a soft upholstery head, worked from the header down so loose dust falls out of the fabric rather than through it. Marks and odour are treated individually. Then both faces are steamed while the curtain hangs in its own folds, which is also the position it dries in — no pressing, no re-dressing, no set marks from a hanging rail. Light sheers are dry to touch in about an hour. Wool-interlined blockouts take closer to two, and we leave a sash cracked or a fan running to move that along.
The soiling here belongs to the block more than the house. From Roseville up through Lindfield, Killara, Pymble and Wahroonga the gardens are mature and heavily treed, and what comes through an open window is not city grit but shed bark, gum-leaf litter broken down to powder, and a heavy pollen load through spring. It collects in the top third of a sheer and in the return folds behind a pelmet, where nobody looks until the curtain is drawn right back. On the shaded southern elevation of a deep block the reveal stays damp for most of winter, and the bottom hem of a lined drape starts to smell musty well before it shows a mark.
Silk, silk blends, viscose-rich linen-looks, wool interlining and heavy cotton sateen are all normal here, often in the same house. They do not behave alike. Silk rings if a droplet is left to sit and dry on its own; viscose loses body and goes papery if it is overworked; wool interlining will shrink if the heat is pushed. Before anything touches a visible face we test on a hidden fold — the inside of a return, or the back of the leading pleat — and the machine is set to the fabric rather than one setting being run through the whole house.
The harbourside apartments read differently again. Art Deco blocks at Kirribilli, Neutral Bay and Cremorne tend to have shorter drops, a sheer and a blockout sharing one track, and windows that open onto salt-carrying air; the residue there is faintly greasy rather than powdery and needs a pre-treatment before steam will lift it. The tower stock at Chatswood and North Sydney is sealed and mechanically ventilated, so dust arrives through the air handling and packs evenly into the pleat from top to bottom instead of settling on the leading edge.
Roman blinds are taken on their own terms. Where the head rail allows it, the blind comes off, is cleaned flat and goes straight back; where it is fixed into joinery it is cleaned in place, cord by cord, with the dowel pockets vacuumed out first because that is where the litter sits. Tracks, rods, brackets, chain drives and the top face of a pelmet are wiped on the same visit. There is little point cleaning a curtain and hanging it back against a rail carrying a decade of dust.
Some panels should not be steamed by anybody. Aged silk that has stood in a north or west window for years is often sound across the top and brittle at the leading edge, because ultraviolet has already broken the fibre down. Cleaning does not cause that damage but it does find it, and a shattered silk can split under its own weight once it is wet. Where we see it we stop, show you the fold that is failing, and say the panel has reached the end of its life. Replacement is the honest answer, and we would rather give it before the invoice than after.
Two other cases come up regularly. Older blockout linings with an acrylic backing delaminate with age; once the coating has gone chalky and is flaking onto the sill, no cleaning method restores it. And mould speckling on a hem that has sat against a cold, damp reveal through several winters can be reduced but rarely removed, because the growth has coloured the fibre itself rather than sitting on top of it. Early spotting responds well. Established spotting does not, and it is quoted that way.
We also decline take-down washing of hand-finished and antique drapery, including anything with a hand-sewn interlining or a face fabric we cannot identify with confidence. Those belong with a specialist textile cleaner rather than in a general plant, and we will say so at inspection.
Access on the North Shore is mostly kind. Almost every house from Roseville north has a driveway or off-street parking, so equipment comes in on a trolley and hose runs are short. The exceptions are the steep sites: Mosman, Cremorne and Northbridge have plenty of houses where the front door sits thirty or forty steps below the street, and Castlecrag has a few that sit well above it. Those are carried in, which is fine as long as we know before the day so the compact unit goes on the truck.
A whole-house booking is the usual shape of the work up here, because a Federation home between Lindfield and Turramurra will have eight to twelve dressed windows and the setup only happens once. Apartments at Chatswood, North Sydney and Neutral Bay are more often two or three rooms, and in a managed building we arrange the lift booking and lodge a certificate of currency with the building manager before the day.
There is very little for the household to do beforehand. Clear anything breakable off the sills and the console table under the window, pull furniture out about a metre so the panel can be worked from both faces, and let us know in advance about motorised tracks, recessed pelmets or anything a decorator installed that we should not be handling. Motorised hardware is worked around rather than dismantled. Pets are easier kept in another room, mostly because the hoses run through doorways.
curtain cleaning is available at every address below. Each suburb has its own page with local pricing, access notes and booking detail — 83 in North Shore in total.
Yes, and that is how we prefer to do it. An interlined pinch-pleat panel in an older upper North Shore house is heavy, the header is often fixed into a track cut for that room, and re-dressing the pleats afterwards takes longer than the cleaning. We vacuum, spot-treat and steam both faces with the panel hanging, so it dries in exactly the folds it has held for years.
On a heavily treed block it is mostly organic: shed eucalypt bark and gum-leaf litter broken down to powder, plus pollen through spring and the leaf drop from liquidambars and planes in the older front gardens. It comes in through open windows and settles in the top third of a sheer and in the folds behind the pelmet. It vacuums out readily, which is why we do a full dry pass before any steam touches the fabric.
Sometimes. Sound silk with a stable dye can be cleaned carefully on the track, and we test a hidden fold first because silk water-marks if a droplet is allowed to dry on its own. Silk that has spent years in a north or west window is a different matter — ultraviolet breaks the fibre down at the leading edge, and a panel in that condition can split once it is wet. If we find that, we tell you at inspection rather than attempting it.
Usually yes. A house between Roseville and Turramurra typically has eight to twelve dressed windows across the formal rooms, bedrooms and a stair landing, and because the setup only happens once, doing them together is far cheaper per window than booking room by room. Allow most of a day for a full house, and expect the sheers to be dry before we leave.
Yes. Tower and mid-rise apartments there are sealed and air-conditioned, so the dust is pushed into the pleat by the ventilation rather than blown in off the street, and it sits more evenly through the fabric. We work on the track as we do in the houses, bring equipment sized for a passenger lift, and handle the lift booking and any insurance paperwork the building manager asks for.
Fixed-price written quote, no obligation. Tell us the address and what needs cleaning.
