On one hand, it is just the bottom of a fireplace, which if used, will be hidden. But on the other hand, if you are paying them to rebuild this the way it was and they didn't do it, it's on them to fix it, for no additional cost, no matter how much longer it will take them to do.

If it's important to you and the character of your home, I'd tell them to fix their mistake.

I know how annoying this is but I would have them redo it. Depending on what you end up putting in the fireplace, it might draw your attention to the brick, and the herringbone is so much nicer.

i think these potatoes are so small they'd cost a fortune at whole foods.

thats my take on it, as you asked.

that said, i'd ask your contractor if he priced the job based on herringbone... you are owed a refund if so.

You will never see the pattern under the andirons and wood. Take a refund and call it good.

Thanks all. Actually, they are telling me it costs the same amount of time to do it the way they did it vs. the herringbone, so no refund. But I didn't have the heart to tell them to redo it.

Yeah right. If you hired the floor to be laid on the brick and then changed your mind to herringbone, believe me, there would have been an upcharge.

Well it's become worse. Here is the end product and it looks awful! I need some solid opinions about what went wrong here.

I made a separate post to get more feedback on this because I wasn't sure if this would get lost - thank you for the comment. How do I address this with the contractor, and can it even be fixed without tearing down the chimney? What a mess. Thanks.

It looks like the box is deeper than it was. Is that the case? If so, the angles of the two side walls meeting with the back wall would be different than before. But, that doesn't mean that it should look like that. That looks like a two year old stacking duplos with mortar. The corners where the bricks meet aren't even level vertically.

Yes, it is deeper - they said my old one was too shallow. I'm sick about this.

I'm afraid I don't know much about what it would take to redo it, but I was studying your picture again - is is just the photo or does the back wall of the firebox now come in at the bottom too? It almost looks like the new one is an lumpy trapezoid shape, whereas the old one was pretty straight. I do think you are right to not be very happy with the quality of the workmanship.

Yes, they also said that the back wall has to be slanted or something to make the fireplace work right. I don't know anything about this stuff but I just accepted that.

Well its not great, but assuming it works properly, once you fire it up you won't be able to see most of it. Also black fire marks will cover much of what you can see.