Choosing a dining table for your home can be a long winded process. In fact, this can be said about shopping for any piece of furniture for a new or existing home. There are a number of variables to factor into the decision. Sometimes the process is complicated further if you live with another person since furniture in common areas would require consensus between all parties. I can tell you that I faced difficulties myself when I moved into a house together with a couple of my close friends. Although hearing from different perspectives is good for getting a range of ideas, different preferences and opinions can also result in decisions not being made in a timely manner if at all.
Therefore if a furniture piece allows for some level of flexibility, this is a welcomed bonus. For example, with regards to square dining tables, settling on a particular size can be one of the more difficult issues. On one hand, you may have only a small number of people using it (e.g. family of 4 people is common) most of the time. However, what about the times when you invite guests over for dinner parties? In such cases, you would need more space at the table. Simply getting a larger table may not be practical for the majority of time you’ll be using it. Instead, it’ll probably just take up too much valuable space and become a hindrance, especially if you live in a small place.
A possible answer is to get an expandable square dining table which comes with a butterfly leaf. When you need the additional space, simply pull out the leaves and when you don’t need this space, just pull them back in. The leaves, when not in use, sit neatly underneath the table, away from sight. An issue you might encounter is that if you want to use table protectors. Since they would be fixed in size, you might need to get two differently sized protectors, if this is important for you.