Gotta give a shout out to my neighbor and let anyone know within an hour or so of us about this guy's work and more importantly, PRICES. I'll try to keep it short:

First up was having our woodstove pad extended and building a woodbox for our firewood, all to match our existing hearth & pad. Our house doesn't have a basement, so what little wood we store inside was making a HUGE mess. Others were quoting us THOUSANDS of dollars. The next lowest quote was for like, $1200 - he did it for about $800 without knowing the other quotes. In & out in three days, although wunna those days was just to drop off material...

Next was our fireplace chimney. In dire straights and getting worse each winter. We had some guys come in wanting to take the entire thing down and start from scratch. Others had the right idea and suggested we just take it down to below the roofline, replace from there on up and repoint what needed it below that. The total replacement quotes were in the TENS of THOUSANDS of dollars, no thanks. The more reasonable guys were coming in between $1200-$2000. That was for replacing everything from the roofline up and repointing areas on the way down. Extending the flu, raising it a coupla courses and replacing the flashing would be extra. He did the whole thing for $620 including extending the flu, raising it two more courses and replacing the flashing rather than using the old shit. Again, in & outta there in 3 days and absolutely NO sign of him being there after that...

He's an old school-kinda guy that comes from generations of masons. Says those are the prices anyone gets, not just neighbor/friend prices. So like I said, if anyone within an hour or so of us is looking to have anything like this done, I'd be happy to put you in touch with him...

We'll be having him do our outdoor firepit/BBQ this summer too, hopefully...