Superior Outdoor Living

Our home is one of the few in the neighborhood that does not have "tree rings" (brick and stone rings around the trees in the yard). My neighbor had an outdoor kitchen installed and I talked to the mason in passing and asked him if he did tree rings. He said yes and that he would give me a bid. His bid was $800 for 4 tree rings using my brick and he would supply the labor, stone, foundation and mortar. My instructions were to make the rings like my neighbor's. He asked if he could cut my bricks in half in order to have enough and I agreed. After I returned home that evening I found the work partially done and I was totally dissatisfied with the work. 1. The tree rings that were completed were not round (see photo). 2. The tree rings were not the same size (see photo). 3. The tree rings were smaller than my neighbors' rings. 4. The trees are not in the center of the rings. I called Phil that night and told him we had problems. He came promptly the next morning and we discussed the issue. Phil immediately blamed me for not specifying the size of the tree rings and that he was building them based on "what I had". He explained that to mean that he built them based on the size and shape of the dirt patches at the base of the tree! I told him this was crazy and gave him two options, either he bust up what he did and get out of there or he try to correct the faulty work. I was in a generous mood and said that since I did not specify that the rings needed to be round, all the same size and apparently didn't make it clear enough that they needed to be the same size as my neighbors', I offered to give him $100 more per ring to correct his faulty work. He declined the offer and said he wanted $200 more per ring and that if he was to bust up the work he would charge me an addition $200 over the $400 I already gave him. I declined his offer and told him to leave. I would like him to fix his work or return all the $400 I gave him due to sub-standard work.