Starting at the top...

The first thing to do was take care of that nasty old roof. It was in poor shape, showed evidence of leaking in the past and looked terrible. Besides the bank would only approve a construction loan until we could protect their investment.
We began by tearing off the old shingles to expose the badly bowed chestnut subroofing. Sheathed with 1x10 Chestnut boards and framed with 2x4's (22ft long!) the roof had withstood almost 90 winters in the high country and looked like it had seen better days. We decided that although it would be alot of work reframing was in order. We sistered every joist on the East facing roof with new 2x6's and straightened the roof back into shape. It was a tough decision about what to use to reroof with. Metal is an obvious choice because of it's recycle-ability but cost was a factor and we didn't prefer the look of metal. In the end we chose to go with the longest life shingles we could (50 year) and know that if the industry doesn't figure out how to recycle asphault shingles inthe next 50 year, then we have problems.
The chestnut was stripped and donated to local woodworkers who value this rare wood. I should note that as the renovations go on we will later discover that whole house was framed from pre-wormy chestnut.
New rafter tails, gutters, and trim completed our first project; and we haven't even moved in yet...