Basements, Attics and Crawl Spaces - Partial removal of a dead chimney. with complications

Ok, our house has two brick chimneys, one of which hasn't been used for years. And in the process of fixing up the attic, we're planning to start the process of getting rid of it.
http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/6974/p1010021.th.jpg (http://img254.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p1010021.jpg)
There's the chimney. The idea in the short term is to remove bricks where the chimney straightens up and goes through the roof, putting in wood supports held to position by 4x4's for support (With crosspieces for stability of course). Once done, this will allow us to remove the lower portion of the dead chimney. The portion going through the ceiling we were thinking to temporarily cover, until we have a professional roofer lined up so that our house's slate roof can be restored right after the chimney is lowered down out of the roof.
Oh, and one other thing. There's a big hole in the chimney, just big enough to get a picture of the inside: http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/1958/p1010026k.th.jpg (http://img135.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p1010026k.jpg)
It looks like the chimney liner broke and dropped at some point in the past. Any thoughts on how we should handle this project?

This is a DIY site, but what you are asking is pretty much above most DIY capabilities. Consider a pro for this one, a mason for the chimney and a slate guy for the roof. Both require skills several steps above the average DIY'er. Anyone can deconstruct a chimney or replace slate shingles. But a pro can do it so no one can tell it was done.

This is a DIY site, but what you are asking is pretty much above most DIY capabilities. Consider a pro for this one, a mason for the chimney and a slate guy for the roof. Both require skills several steps above the average DIY'er. Anyone can deconstruct a chimney or replace slate shingles. But a pro can do it so no one can tell it was done.
Actually the plan was always to call in a professional to take care of the roofing. We were just looking at a situation where we were already planning to do some major DIY renovation of the attic and one room underneath, and using the timing to also get rid of the old chimney which is not only dead, but was cut off between the first and second floor.

The idea was that first we'd seperate the very top of the the chimney so that it could stay where it is until we hire the roofing pro to help us get rid of that bit of it. But meanwhile, we'd also take down the rest of the chimney, which currently only passes through the attic, and a room we were preparing to redo the walls and floor on anyway. The idea is to get the DIY part of the project mostly finished before going to the stage where we were always planning to leave it to the pro.

Depends: i agree with Bill, but, "The Money Pit" was entertaining!!! Be safe, GBR

Getting the attic part of the chimney out should be the easy part. Getting it down to the roof line without damaging the slate might not be so easy, requires careful work, and slate is slippery.