The two-bedroom flat, with just 370 square feet of usable space, had to be able to accommodate guests for drinks, a sizeable shoe collection and all the mod cons required for a comfortable existence.

“It’s irritating when you live in something that looks nice if it isn’t functional as well,” Espley says, proud of the small changes that gave her big returns.

For instance, she created a bar table from separately sourced parts, because no contractor she approached would fashion what she wanted and none of the shops she trawled offered anything suitable.

“Everybody wanted to fix it to the wall and kept telling me it was too dangerous to have a table of this dimension,” she says. “Finally I found the base [in Lockhart Road], a top in Ikea and the chairs from G.O.D.

It looks like a set, the size is perfect and it is very stable.”

The tall table serves as a surface for meals and work, although only occasionally, as Espley, who is in marketing, shares an office in Central.

“I wanted to create a divide and break up the room,” the Briton says. “I like to joke that this is my dining room, this is my multimedia room and this is my sitting room.”

So small that it escaped our photographer’s camera, the middle section consists of a television affixed to the wall and a music player sitting atop a modern white chest of drawers from FrancFranc.

Not much larger is the kitchen. At just 24 square feet (when measured during our visit, this provoked good-natured laughter), it is the size of a closet but, with nips and tucks by Espley, who loves to cook, it manages to accommodate a washer/dryer, an oven and, incredibly, a dishwasher.

To create space for these must-haves, Espley placed her refrigerator and a wine fridge in the living room, behind a blind, so that, from the sitting area, they cannot be seen. Similarly, she hung a piece of art, found in Ikea, in front of a water heater in the bathroom, transforming a nondescript space into something attractive and feminine.

However, it’s the bedroom that really shows off her talents. Having found a contractor to build a sleeping platform over the bay window, Espley then bought a staple gun to attach a custom-made skirt to the base.

The pleated fabric conceals suitcases and other bulky items that can be stashed and retrieved with ease.

Her contractor also removed unsightly wallpaper from the bedroom and living areas, allowing Espley to paint the walls a subtle pink. “I wanted a bit of colour and a colour that other colours could go with,” she says.

“I just wanted to make [the flat] more me.”

Espley’s sense of style comes to the fore in the space around the bay window in the living room.

Here, a custom-made, velvet-tufted sofa sits against a wall facing a pair of chairs and a coffee table crafted from wine boxes topped with a circular piece of smoked glass. “Those empty boxes are screwed together so they’re not going to come apart,” she says. A friendly local wine supplier was her source for the salvaged crates.

A painting of an ornate chandelier, hung high on the wall opposite the sofa, adds glamour to this pretty corner, framed at the farthest end by a reupholstered banquette seat that makes use of the bay window. The view below is of a leafy park and a port; beyond are the sea, bridges and distant buildings. “You can sit in this window bay and watch the tugs go by,” Espley says. “The shipping is amazing.”

What is astounding is the spacious feel in a space so small. “I can seat six people here for drinks comfortably,” she says.

Another plus is that Espley’s flat will curb any spending impulses. “I don’t need to buy anything else at all and that’s quite a nice feeling,” she says. “Everything’s here; everything works; it’s functional.”

Bedroom To make the most of the sea view and to create storage space, Espley had a bed platform built for HK$1,500 (timber and labour) by Hero Interior Design and Engineering (tel: 6909 3236). She sourced the fabric for the base from Kin Hing Hong Textiles (167 Yu Chau Street, Sham Shui Po, tel: 2398 1688) for HK$36 a yard then got handy with a staple gun. The LOVE cushion (HK$270) was from FrancFranc and the two Kristjana S Williamsprint cushions (HK$2,484 for the pair) from A.Style (12 Tai Ping Shan Street, Sheung Wan, tel: 2803 0642).

Bathroom Ikea products – a poster (about HK$250), which hides a water heater, and a double and a single mirror cabinet (which cost a total of HK$3,880) – lifted the bathroom.

Design tip: storage underfoot handy for shoes and bags

A practical feature of the second bedroom, which Diane Espley uses as a dressing room, is the storage spaces built underfoot. "I've got rather a lot of shoes," she says, opening one of three hatches to reveal her summer footwear. Regular shoe racks, fitted face-down instead of upright, hold the many pairs, with a separate compartment for winter shoes and the third for handbags.