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Dytecture Hi, any pictures you can post showing what it looks like?

fife2 Well I don't know who told you this, but ANYTHING can be moved! Is your home over a crawl space for the furnace and the ductwork? Do you have plaster and wood -athe walls? Is your home one or two stories?

It might cost you some bucks - BUT it can be moved. At least it is not an oil burnner in the middle of the floor - :-)

I would call a heating and air specialist and ask them about re-routing the duct work. I am going to assume this is because the furnace is directly underneath the return vent?

feeny If it is too expensive to move, I'd be tempted to try a furniture arrangement where a sofa is placed over the grate, with an area rug coming up to and under the front legs of the sofa, but not so far as to cover the grate. That would hide it completely, but without photos it is impossible to tell whether there is a logical and attractive furniture arrangement that could accomplish that effect.

mmonika From just having re-run duct work in our own house I am curious to ask why it cannot be moved? I assume that this room has been re sized and the cold air was originally placed along the side of a wall. It would have been very odd that they built an air return in the middle of a room as this isn't even practical for proper air flow... or your living room happens to be right in the middle of your house?

A cold air return can run through your floor joists, so if you have those, you should be able to re-route the opening.
My only suggestion for leaving it as-is, is to get a grate that is flush with your floor ( not those drop in metal ones) so that at least it doesn't call more attention to itself. Or get a coffee table to put over it with a lower shelf that can 'hide' it but high enough to still allow for enough air to flow to it.

stone_revival wow - I didn't expect a response so quickly, thank you :) Here are more details: It is a stone, cape-cod type of house. (Not a stone facia, actual stone). Wall composition inside of the stone is a mash-up (some plaster/lathe, some drywall/wood, etc.. It is about 29'x29'.
Yup, the furnace is directly underneath the return vent. The basement is a approx 5' tall, and is slightly better than a crawlspace in that it does have a concrete floor.. It (the basement) has random concrete walls (some are structural, some are not as in they do not go all the way to the ceiling) that I haven't found the history on yet. (some of those non-structural interior stone walls are broken, you can see the stonework all the way through. Neat).. The basement also has a "mystery" 5'x4'-ish area sealed off in the middle (it is 4 solid cinderblock walls with the old chimney incorporated into one of the walls.. kinda. The furnace is next to it. There are other oddities down there.. like, there used to be a well, the old well connections sticking out of one of the exterior walls.
Entry from the living room (front) or from the kitchen (back). The first floor has the living room, kitchen, dining and bath, with the stairs/fireplace/chimney in the center of the first floor. All of the 1st floor "rooms" open onto each other.. almost like a studio. The cold air return is fairly close to the center of the house, and all the heat vents are at the exterior (under windows)

stone_revival here's a pic. It's an old one, but it'll give you some idea.. (I don't want to highlight my clutter).. The grate looks smaller than it really is..
Note, what looks like some sort of carpet step under the stairs is actually the old fireplace. Previous owner carpeted and dry-walled the old fireplace opening.. augh.. That is being changed, but that's another story.
another note: I didn't count the little space under the far ceiling fan in my original post.. I wasn't as detailed, since I really didn't expect a fast response :)

Linda Is there possibly an old oil or coal burner inside the mystery space?

I once looked at a house with a similar mystery space. That one turned out to be the house originally had a short crawl space and the furnace was under floor, atop a cement pad. Then, someone got the bright idea to dig out an exterior access only basement under the house. So, they dug all the way around the furnace area leaving the cement topped dirt pedestal and then they poured walls around the dirt up to the level of the cement pad. Then they did regular stud wall from the top of the cement to the floor above and the only access was an area left open that was about 2 feet wide.

stone_revival There could be anything in the mystery space - I just haven't gotten around to cracking it open.. yet. It's definitely newer than the original parts of the house,and very solid. At some point, I have to tear up the entire kitchen floor (it's rotted), I figured I could get a peek down into it then.. maybe.. An old burner would make sense.... it would be the perfect location. (though I really don't know enough about that to really know)...
The old fireplace is part of the area above the mystery space..

Linda I would be very cautious about the mystery space since you have a legal obligation to disclose whatever you know about the presence of hazardous materials in the property. So, if you don't know what is in there, you have no requirement to say anything about it. My belief is some questions are better not asked...

feeny I'd be curious to hear what a professional realtor would say about LInda's theory. Not knowing can sometimes mean a big expensive surprise when a buyer insists on a test or exploratory information as part of the home inspection and condition of sale (though you can always refuse, I suppose). Almost 20 years ago we asked for a lead paint test for a house we put a bid on (as we had an infant son and it was a century old house that hadn't been renovated since the 1960's). The lead levels were so high that we backed out of the offer and instead bought a house from that same era that had had better upkeep. If the owners had known about the problem ahead of time, they could have repainted and sealed in the lead before putting the house up for sale. So ignorance is not always bliss.

About that mystery space in stone revival's basement: Our basement has a huge old brick (non-functioning, non hazardous) incinerator that was used for garbage when the house was built in the 1920's. It just sits there innocently taking up space, but we were able to use its chimney (which runs through the middle of the house, hidden in the walls and separate from the fireplace chimney) as the vent for our new range hood when we redid our kitchen. Very convenient.

trebinje "So, if you don't know what is in there, you have no requirement to say anything about it." If that's the seller's marketing strategy, then the home needs to be sold As-Is and will sell at a discount to the market value of comparable homes with full disclosure.

Claiming one doesn't know about a defect does not protect one from the assertion in litigation that one SHOULD HAVE KNOWN about a defect.

Linda I should have said that you are not required to speculate about something when you have no actual knowledge. But, you must disclose the information you do possess. So, in the case of lead, once lead testing has been performed, you must disclose the results to any potential buyer. Even if you have had the lead professionally remediated, I think you would still have to disclose the original information.

I also have an incinerator in the basement of my 1931 house. Unfortunately, the flue runs through the same chimney as the boiler/water heater flue. I love the idea of reusing the flue for the range hood exhaust instead of my recirculating range hood.