If possible would you please express an opinion on what I should find and what you would recommend, considering functionality, aesthetics,and cost, if I decide to do the following. A little background first. I am slowly restoring and updating rooms and structural features in my family's homstead, now my home. Although my parents did not let the needed maintains on the house slip, what they did do was to apply the changing "fashionable styles" over a 55 year period. Thus they covered hardwood floors with wall-to-wall carpeting, painted the inside wood trim work, etc. Now I am removing and restoring these treatments and giving them a more natural look. What I am confronted with now is the following: Around forty to forty-five years ago they applied 8 inch aluminum siding to the outside. When doing this they covered the siding that was there then,(I had to check with my older siblings to determine what this was since I was quite young when the aluminum was put up) which was 8 to 10 inch deep brown stained cedar shingles (their size is a best guess). Although the aluminum siding has been well kept and has no visible signs of failing, I am considering removing it ( I have been told it is a fire trap). I am not sure what I will find under the aluminum if I do. That is, will the cedar shingles be in good enough shape to keep; what problems may I encounter and have to fix to the old cedar shingles, if they are fixable, from all of the time being covered and the due to the installation of the aluminum? Finally, if keeping neither the aluminum nor the cedar shingles is advisable then what would be your recommendation(s) on other possibilities, remembering keeping in mind functionality, aesthetics, and cost, in re-doing the outside in a natural style? I will give you some additional information which may be helpful in your considerations to my many questions: The house is located about 10 miles north of Boston, MA and was built, according to city records around 1910, and whether the cedar shingles were part of the original construction, I do not know nor know how to determine this issue.

Thank you,

Ladamduke