Living Room And Heating Grate

Now that the rush to finish Cara's room is over, we are working on several things at once. Yesterday I furred out the windows in the living room.

We have more floor ready to put in the living room but we failed to obtain a 5/8" nailer in time for last weekend. There's always another weekend.
In prep for putting in the LR floor, I have another one of those "what the hell did you get yourself into now, Paul, are you crazy?" projects. This is the heating grate in the middle of the floor.

Statistically, more than 50% of the people in my family are ladies, and they wear high heels or get their toes caught in the grate all the time, so it has to go. It straddles the line between the LR and the DR, so it has to go soon. This is what it looks like underneath.

I will have to take the vertical stack off the plenum and re-route the heat through two ducts, one that goes into the LR, the other into the DR, for a more heel-and-toe friendly home, and better distribution of heat. I will also have to put a new joist in that replaces the one that comes to the box around the floor grate from the sill of the house. It never makes it to the main beam, and the floor is a bit weak there as a result. So, I have two 12' joists to be ripped down to the proper width to install, and not a lot of room to swing them around. This will be fun, but it won't be the worst thing I ever faced.