First - are you sure that the beams originally were stained wood = solid real wood vs. faux? Do you know what type of wood (if you know that they are solid wood)?

What year was the house built? The newer the home, the less likely that the wood beams will be solid wood beams.

I think it would be much easier to clad the beams with wood veneer - or different beam covering material that is available. Trying to remove paint + sand beams that are installed on your ceiling will be extremely difficult + sanding will create a HUGE mess.

I would remove the pillars altogether (check first to make sure they're not structural), but this would create issues with the flooring as you would also have to remove where they attach to the floor and ceiling. Maybe if they were painted white they wouldn't look so bad. Paint the beams to match the wall/ceiling color. Are you keeping the floors? The dark beams look particularly out of place with such light floors. The kitchen backsplash looks like it's dark, too, so consider whether this will look wrong if the beams aren't dark anymore. Sometimes it's hard to change one thing without having to change others.

No we aren't keeping the floors. Will be changing those as well.

First find out if the pillars are structural then if they must stay I can bet they are not solid wood so paint in a color like the walls if you are planning to paint would be my choice . I do not think you will fool anyone by painting them brown like wood. The ones on the ceiling are just awful so IMO they can go