It's lovely to be able to entertain occasionally, even if you don't have much space. You might have to push some furniture around and ask your guests to bring their own chairs, but just for a few hours you should be able to get a few people around a table for a meal. 

The best way to achieve this is with a dining table that can grow. A decent extending table is hard to find, however. They tend to be dull and devoid of any style or impractical, because they require you to store the leaves somewhere. Here is my top ten:

Console tables that morph into dining tables are becoming popular at the top end of the market and I don't think it will be long until they start turning up in stores such as Ikea and Habitat. Laura Ashley does one, but it's nothing special to look at. Steuart Padwick's Double Cross table can be pushed against the wall as a console table or desk or used as a breakfast bar and then opened out to feed a crowd.

Whilst this Golia console table cleverly telescopes out to comfortably accommodate ten and it's available in a range of colours.

Whilst the Ugo coffee table from One Deko rises up and expands out in to a dining table of over two metres in length.

Or start off round and let your table grow into a clover leaf shape. The three leaves in the Skovby SM32 table are stored in its central column and there are no legs to get in the way of guests.

Then there's Bethan Gray's Noah dining table for John Lewis. It has that contemporary retro vibe and grows up to 205cm.

Start off square for four and go oblong for six. Storing extension leaves when not in use can be a pain, but with Made.com's Bramante Square extending table the leaf is stored within the table.

The two wings either side of Habitat's Ruskin II table in dark oak slide back in when the guests have left.

Crank things up with the traditional looking Black Orchid Interior's Harvard black extending dining table, just turn the handle to extend.

Ikea's Glivarp extendable table make a good compact budget buy, it seats two and expands to seat four. Glass always works well in a tiny room, as you can see through it it creates the illusion of space.

At the other end of the price scale, Benchmark's Bellanca table beautifully mixes oak with walnut extensions.

Do you know of any other contenders?