Furniture, Wood and Cabinetry Finishing - e-mail about refinishing white kitchen cabinets

I received this e-mail and posted it here for the benefit of all. I don't like to answer questions via e-mail for that reason.

Good morning. This weekend my wife and I are going to begin refinishing our kitchen cabinets, but I require a little guidance.
The House was built in 1952. The kitchen cabinets have glass insets (and look like windows). The cabinets have been three-four different colors from the scuffs on the inside of the cabintes and on the doors next to the dishwasher. The colors have been, from what I can gather, Red, Yellow, Blue (or Greenish) and now white. We want to strip all the colors and stain them similar to our next door neighbors kitchen.
I do not know what paste/chemical to get to strip the paint and exactly how to prep the cabinets. E.g. should I remove all handles, hinges, and adornments. Also, should I do the Cabinet doors/draws in the garage (other area) or with the bases themself? Finally, the interiors are white, can I just pull the shelves and items within the cabinets and rework the wood or do I need to prep them in a special manner?

Thanks
Jon

PS: How long till the cabinets can host dishes and utensils after the stripping and staining?

E-mail is Poetboy_74@hotmail.come-mail ae-

To strip these, remove all the hardware. Remove the glass, too. Stripper will etch the glass. I would work on them in the garage if it is more convenient a location. Chemical strippers such as: klean kut, strypeze, and such will remove the paint. If the glass cannot be removed, a "safe" stripper such as 3M safe strip will be needed to avoid etching the glass.

The interiors would work well with cleaning with spic and span, a light scuff sanding, priming, then painting. If you want to stain inside the cabinets, stripping will be needed to remove the finish.

I would give the finish time to harden before using the cabinets. 24 - 48 hours for alkyd products, 4 - 7 days for latex.

Hope this helps.