Fireplace drama

Earlier I spoke with a great deal of excitement about the most significant change in our house: the narrowing of the fireplace to let light flow through the house from front to back. This is what the original fireplace looked like:

Step one was removing enough of the right-hand side of the fireplace to make it even with the left. Like this:

All is good until we hear from the contractor given how the bricks must be put back together...we don't have enough. It's a bit hard to explain but you can't just stack the ends of the bricks on top of each other. Maybe another photo will help:

This is the original remaining side of the fireplace. You can see how ends of the brick are mixed in with lengthwise bricks- they even wrap around the corner in some instances.

Bottom line? We would need to find more brick in similar shades/color and the layering would be very labor intensive. Basically, almost doubling the projected cost, which is something we can't do. So, after much displeased conversation with the contractor we are opting to cover up the entire fireplace and put a new stone facade over it. Real stone but already assembled into panels so it is less time and labor. Here is what our poor old fireplace looks like right now:

No more sandstone, just a concrete cover.

In the next few days I'll be going to a Eldorado Stone to look at the options in our price range. This is very disappointing but hopefully, when it's finished it will look great.