For stripping, a lot depends on the paint you are trying to remove...how old is the house? how many layers? any chance it is lead paint? Are you planning to paint or stain the treads once they are stripped? If you've only got a couple layers and/or if it's not lead paint, a heat gun may work well. Otherwise, you'll want a stripper. We stripped the stairs in our last house - a 200 year old farmhouse with about 15 layers of flaking nasty paint. I started with conventional methylene chloride (I think) based stripper. Each application would get one layer off and it was taking forever - I worked on 2 stair treads for about 3 solid days and they still weren't done. I tried a heat gun but it wasn't all that effective either, plus it's not really safe on lead paint. Plus the bottom layer or two were milk paint, which is near-impossible to strip with either a heat gun or regular stripper. I ended up using Peel Away, which is a lye based product - you paint it on like paste and cover it with special wax paper. Then you leave it sit for 24-48 hours. When you remove the paper and scrape off the peel away, the paint comes with it. You then wash the new wood and spray it with vinegar to neutralize the lye (otherwise your wood will continue to get eaten away). Peel away was great because 1) it eliminated a lot of elbow grease - the stripper did the work for us, 2) it was nasty, but not nearly as nasty as the meth chloride stripper, 3) it is considered one of the best strippers for lead paint because something in the lye bonds with the lead and prevents it from being absorbed by the body. Plus the lead paint stays wet and gooey, and never has a chance to get scattered as dust like it would be if you were scraping/sanding. Alas, it's not all peachy though. Peel Away (at least the formulation we used - they have a few different ones) can discolor/darken the wood, so it's best to use on wood you are planning to repaint, not stain. We stained the treads and painted the risers and handrail and you could definitely see the discoloration where we stained (we prefered to think of it as "patina" though!). It also didn't get all the paint out of the little cracks. In places it made the wood very soft so we had to be very careful when removing it - we gouged the wood in several places. Oh, and one thing I noticed was that you REALLY have to soak the thing in vinegar (which raises the grain) - if you don't neutralize it enough, you will wake up one day 3 months later to find your new paint job sliding down off the wall because the peel away has eaten it away from the backside. (Ask me how I know this....) Even with the Peel Away, it took us several months of weekends to get all the trim stripped in our house - it's a dirty messy job, but worth it in the end. HTH! Good luck!

Well, looks like I should reuse the cabinets, one way or the other. The existing base cabnets fit well into the layouts I'm playing with. egganddart - the doors are more detailed than I would like, but what bothers me most is the finish and the partial overlay aspect. I would prefer inset or full overlay. One problem with the current kitchen is that I stupidly used d/w panels and it doesn't really work with partial overlay doors. Perhaps what I should do is get ss panels for the d/ws and fridge and just paint the existing cabs. Then I wouldn't have to worry about getting a really good carpenter. Only prob with that is i will have traditional-looking cabs with ss appliances. Not sure about that. The layout I'm playing with has an island with stools open to a hearth room and minimal upper cabs. So the doors aren't going to be a focal point anyway. Any one have any idea on labor for all this. Plumbing for one sink, two d/w, mostly all new electric, sliding some windows over (no brick work). Thanks to everyone for all the advice!

Benjamin Moore has a paint called Impervo that is suppose to be good for cabs. It comes in latex as well as oil. I went to buy some last week and the BM dealer I use said he doesn't sell it any more now that BM' s new Aura paints have come out. He said they are also very good for cabs. I haven't tried it yet, but it did come with a set of special instructions. It seems that it is quite fast drying making it, maybe not tricky to work with, but requires more thinking than with ordinary paint. I've also read that Cabinet Coat is a good paint for cabs.

Peel Away Peel Away is a paste you apply with and cover with a plastic film. You leave it overnight or longer. I've used it inside in the winter. Took many layers of paint off a radiator. The Peel Away® 1 Heavy Duty Paint Remover Complete Removal System is an environmentally safe and biodegradable paint stripping system for removing up to 30+ coats of paint in a single application from most surfaces, (i.e., wood, brick, concrete, stone, stucco, plaster, cast iron, steel, marble, and most fiberglasses). Zipstrip it methylchloride based. You need to have the windows open. Why don't you visit those two websites and read their info? I've done old homes before. You have to experiment, what works on one, maybe not the other. IMO, if the door is closed (to the room you're stripping) you should have no problems with either product (I've used both).