There's a long thread in buying and selling homes about this. The poster complained that the potential buyers weren't making offers because the house had laminate. The rest of the house was very "pottery barn" - updated paint, beautiful light fixtures, etc. It was a long thread and most posters were against laminate. If you aren't worried about selling or you know that laminate is a common floor in your neighborhood and price range, then get what you like. Otherwise it may be a negative at resale. Here is a link that might be useful: Why the negative laminate view?

I've copied & pasted a comment I made 20 minutes ago! haha Well... I could probably write 3 pages worth of nonsense, which would seem "tainted" because I'm in the business of manufacturing hardwood flooring. But the short version is... over the years, we've provided hardwood flooring for a number of clients, and have NEVER had anyone comment that it was the wrong decision. The consensus USED to be that carpet was preferable, because it was "warm & soft", however the test of time has proven that wood flooring is: A} "environmentally friendly" (being a product of nature...) B} Provides excellent insulation C} Much easier to maintain than carpet D} With the little bit of care needed, it will outlast carpet for DECADES, and with a bit of attention to product appearance/choice, it will remain "in style" almost indefinitely. E} MOST importantly... hardwood flooring is a stable product, which will not "SHED" all of the nasty acrylic/nylon/petroleum based fibers into the air, which is what we BREATH... (that which isn't sucked up by the vacuum cleaner). Most people attribute "dusty furniture" to DIRT... when it's a known fact that DUST is mainly particulates which have been collected by, or shed by CARPET. Okay... I'm done! haha

OK...now to the MEAT of the issue. By 'rugs' I assume you mean wall-to-wall carpet. Ok. That means you have a house that has a second floor (can we assume wood joists for the second floor?) that has been BUILT to handle carpet. Carpets are light. They HIDE tremendous amounts of errors that the builders caused when building the house. At this point I would ASSUME the upstairs needs strengthening BEFORE tiles can be installed. Bathrooms are different. They have extra support because they are full of heavy things (tubs, showers, sinks, cabinetry). That means the bathroom floors are strong enough to handle tile. The rest of the upstairs is NOT strong enough for tile (if you have concrete then you can ignore this thread). Tiles are HEAVY. They will cause normal wooden subfloors to bend. Tiles don't bend...they crack. Their grout cracks. Then the pop up. Now you have a HUGE mess. The installer will have to do the math for the joists + subfloor thickness. That math will tell him/her how much THICKER the upstairs subfloor has to be. You will then pay for the new plywood for the upstairs. You will pay for that plywood to be installed (can be $2/sf for material + labour). Now you can install the tile. Tiles normally sit 3/4" thick once installed. That is VERY THICK compared to your carpet. Now the subfloor thickness is added to that. It is possible the upstairs floors will rise by 1" - 1.5". That means your stairs are going to get messed up. And now we have a BIG expensive problem. And that's just for the stairs. Imagine how big of a step down you will have into the bathroom. And the doors will have to be taken down and trimmed. If you want an easy to care for surface, you should look at laminate or vinyl plank flooring. Tiling the second story of a home can be VERY expensive. So expensive that most people do NOT try it. Be VERY aware of what you ask of your house. It was NOT built for tile upstairs. It was built for carpets...The stairs could be a nightmare you never ever want to experience. Their costs are extreme. Having to 'fix' a stair that is out of code can double, or even triple the cost of the project. No. I am not kidding. We've seen $15K spent on bring the stairs up to code in a situation like this. And then you have to pay to have a floor put on them.

We recently had our front hall flooring installed with porcelain wood look tile and had it installed lengthwise. We felt it looked best that way.