OUR STORY · SYDNEY · ESTABLISHED 2003
Built over time,
one window at a time.
Tony's working life in window furnishings began in Sydney in the early 1990s — before CCBD had a name, a website or a showroom story to tell.
For close to a decade, he learnt the trade around Bankstown and Crows Nest: handling fabric, measuring windows, solving problems in people's homes, making treatments and seeing what happened when a good idea met the reality of an opening.
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THE EARLY YEARS
Before CCBD, there was the trade.
The first lessons were practical. Fabric has weight. Pattern has a repeat. Floors and ceilings are not always level. A track that looks simple on paper still needs the right fixing, projection and clearance when it reaches the room.
Working directly with customers also taught Tony that the brief is rarely just “a curtain”. It might be privacy without losing daylight, a bedroom that needs better light control, or a difficult window that still has to feel settled within the room.
2003
CREATIVE CURTAINS BY DESIGN
Starting something of his own.
After close to a decade learning the work, Tony established Creative Curtains by Design in 2003. It began with custom curtains and soft furnishings, a practical knowledge of Sydney homes and a simple belief: do the work properly and people will remember.
And they did.
The business grew through returning clients, referrals and relationships with homeowners, builders and designers — not through becoming the loudest name in the market.
A SYDNEY EDUCATION
You learn a city through its homes.
Sydney became part of the education: older houses with deep reveals and uneven walls, apartments where privacy and balcony access compete, family rooms opened to the garden, and new glazing that changed the scale and weight of the treatment.
The architecture varied. The judgement stayed close to the window, the room and the way people actually lived.
MATERIAL JUDGEMENT
After enough years, you begin to see fabric differently.
A sample is only the beginning. The same cloth changes when it is pleated, lined, backlit, repeated across a wide opening or asked to fold into a Roman blind.
Tony learnt to look beyond colour: to consider composition, drape, pattern placement, seam positions, fullness, lining and how the textile would sit beside timber, stone, paint and furniture. That is where curtain making and interior judgement meet.
THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE WINDOWS
Some windows led to another room. Some led to another generation.
A well-resolved room often led to the next room, then another home. Parents referred children. Clients returned after renovating or moving. Friends and neighbours called because they had seen the work in a home they trusted.
Those relationships gave the business its shape. They also kept the work personal. The window was never an abstract specification; it belonged to a household, a routine and a place that mattered to someone.
THE WORK EVOLVED
Sydney changed. So did the windows.
Creative Curtains by Design began with traditional curtains and soft furnishings. Over time, the work expanded into sheers, Roman blinds, roller and specialist blinds, shutters, motorisation and more complex custom installations.
Larger glazing brought heavier loads and longer spans. Apartments brought close neighbours, glare and access constraints. Automation introduced power, controls and future servicing. Each new system added another layer to the same craft.
CONTINUITY
The technology changed. The judgement still matters.
Motors, controls and concealed systems can make a treatment quieter and easier to use. They do not decide whether the fabric is suitable, the stack is proportionate or the fixing can carry the finished weight. Experience still connects the parts.
But the part Tony loved about the work never really changed: taking an empty window and making it feel right for the people who live there.
CREATIVE CURTAINS BY DESIGN → CCBD
A new name for what the business had become.
CCBD — Craftsman Curtains & Bespoke Design — is not a replacement for the business established in 2003. It is a clearer expression of what that business grew to include: textile knowledge, custom making, broader window furnishings, technical coordination and considered installation.
The name changed as the capability widened. The commitment to careful, individual work remained.
WITH THANKS
Built with the trust of Sydney clients.
CCBD is grateful to the homeowners, families, friends, neighbours, builders and designers who invited Tony and the team into their homes and projects, returned for the next room, and passed the name on. More than three decades in Sydney's curtain and window furnishing industry have been built through those conversations as much as through fabric and hardware.
ESTABLISHED 2003 · WORKING IN THE TRADE SINCE THE EARLY 1990S
CCBD is a Sydney story.
And we're still building it, one window at a time.