openstreetmap - How would I draw and visualize custom maps based on OSM data?

I would like to be able to use openstreetmap data for a specific region as a source and "draw" from that the map of infrastructure improvements - mostly roads.

I want it to be self-hosted (not spoiling any data on the real OSM servers), want to have quite big flexibility and detail level in the editing process and it would be nice to render it in a pretty way.

I'm not familiar with lots of GIS software. Actually it's not that important to have OSM data as the source, it could be a satellite image as well. The important things - flexible drawing bound to real coordinates and visualization of the map.

Where could I start?

Hope this question makes sense here :)

Answer

I've found exactly what I needed: Maperitive. This application can load OSM data (*.osm can be saved by JOSM f.i.) and render nice images based on very flexible and customizable rules.