Why sand off the finish that’s ok? You could just touch up the finish or use wax to refinish it. I have suggested it often but check out Christophe Pourny’s book the furniture bible.

Oh if its painted that one thing. If it was a traditional finish probably could just use an alcohol dye over it to change the color.

Rather than sanding the paint off, you may want to look at using a stripper. I’ve used one called “Circa 1850” to strip the finish off of older pieces that I wanted to refinish. (N.B. Follow all the safety precautions). I have a dining table and a sideboard that originally had an ugly fake fumed oak finish. After stripping they both were made of some nice maple. I guess that that was the cheap wood at the time of manufacture. Stripping the finish left a nice patina on the wood.

Also, machine sanding is a boring, dusty job with the risk of damaging the wood. Doing it by hand would be boring, dusty and take a long time.

That would get you down to bare wood. The only two considerations I can think of are that the finish may tend to dull the plane iron more quickly and making sure that any slight reduction in thickness of the parts does not cause issues with any joinery.

Planing will remove any surface patina from the wood, which is probably not a consideration if the furniture is not that old.

I would probably try planing.

Another alternative is a cabinet or card scraper. I’ve been using them almost exclusively for the last year or so to remove paint and finish from furniture refinishing projects. It takes a little bit of practice, but they are easier to sharpen than a plane and save you a whole lot of sandpaper and stripper. I rounded over the corners of two of mine to prevent scratching the wood. Card scrapers give me more control, but if you are doing a big piece your hands can get sore after a while so a cabinet scraper might come in handy.