For graphic designer Lisa Delany, it was a no-brainer to go into business with her industrial designer husband Grant Macdonald and created Room99.

“In 2005, Grant bought Ferndale Furniture, a 20-year-old joinery firm in Petone. His career until then had been in commercial interior design and property management,” says Lisa. But the chance to dip a toe into the residential market was too good to resist, so in 2012 the couple took over an 86sqm space in Wellington’s College Street and filled it with a range of ply, oak veneer and Tasmanian Blackwood coffee tables, tall boys and hall tables designed by Grant.

“The brief was to provide contemporary, uncluttered furniture with an element of surprise, such as a secret compartment or pop-up lid.” Most of the company’s work is now custom-made for clients around New Zealand and the range has expanded to include open shelving, media units, desks and lowboys.

After three years in central Wellington, the store recently relocated to its Petone production facility, allowing customers to “really engage with the production process”, says Lisa.