There are few purchases that cost under $3 that have worked as hard or proven as versatile as my IKEA signe mats.
I have a a weakness for casual stripes (as opposed to bold and polished, the way most people think of stripes), and I think that, like black, every room benefits from a little stripe.
I remember when I bought a few of these little rugs about a month after moving into our house. It was one of those classic American hoarder Ikea shopping trips where you run in to get "water glasses and maybe a few things to help organize kid toys," but get caught up in how simple (and inexpensive) that scandinavian style is, and come out wielding a massively unruly shopping cart with wobbly wheels--why are those carts so flipping shaky?-- while forcing your toddler to walk so that the water glasses (and wineglassespictureframesorchidcowhidedesklamp) have a secure spot.
I remember my husband coming home and asking why his "minimalist" wife had bought 10 front door mats...I claimed I had a plan, and as it turns out many years later I did :)
And I use one to layer this old, uglybutawesome chair that we inherited and have grown to love, making the brown tweed not so just brown tweedish....
And I have a few that I layer in our bedroom every once in a while. Personally, I prefer mats (if anything) to rugs in our bedroom because I love the simplicity of bare wood floors.
For a year or so, IKEA stopped selling these SIGNE mats, but they started carrying them again a few months ago...so watch out hem Moss...