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!

Most likely a false wood grain paint kit was used. First coat was maybe a tan then used a stiff brush and brushed on a darker color to make streaks. I forgot what was used over this, however, most likely it was a clear varnish. Been too many years since I used a wood grain kit. I believe regular paint stripper will work to remove the wood grain paint. Try it in a small area. Check with Home Depot or other and see if they still sell the wood grain kits, a good way to find out exactly what might be on the boards.

Could the fireplace have been painted inside, so it looked nicer, because it is non working or unsafe to use? If thats not the case, then you will need to use a stripper. High heat enamel cannot be used on the inside. At least all the high heat enamel, I have used, has had that right on the can.

We have two of these in one of our buildings. Ours, and I suspect yours, are cast stone (judging by the little bubbles around the edges). Ours mainly had paint at the edge of the wall, luckily ours was smooth there so 50% could be removed with a very sharp razor blade. The rest we removed with regular paint stripper (I think we used citristrip). We then recaulked the seams at the wall with color matched sanded grout caulk.