Roadside Rescue -- Drop Back & Punt PART 1

What to do with a 6'x4' mid-century blown up photo of a lonely stretch of highway somewhere in Kansas?  Buy it and wait for inspiration to strike. 

Hmm, if I had a fairly flat fronted dresser I could decoupage a good section of the photo onto the front.  Last Friday I passed on a cheap one at an auction because of lack of storage space.  While holding my quivering bidding hand down I reasoned that spring would be a much better time to tackle such a project.  Then my husband came home a couple days later with a roadside rescue that was the perfect mid-century flat-front dresser.  Hard to argue with free.

Today truly was the last nice day of 2014.  65 degrees.  It goes downhill from here.  Time to conquer the dresser.  Quick overall sanding with new orbital sander.  I had bought hammered pewter spraypaint ($7.95ish) to cover the pulls and knobs.   I painted the dresser a dark gray to coordinate with b&w photo. 
I didn't like it. 

So I sprayed the whole dresser with the hammered pewter spraypaint.  WHAT WAS I THINKING?
Maybe in a few decades I will be able to laugh about this particular step.

I decided to give myself a break and decoupage one of the drawers while I considered my options.  It was at this point that I realized the paper photo was not just taped on the back to a piece of fiberboard, but it was glued on.  If I had access to a fancy electrical saw I may have taken heart.
Now I was stuck with a hammered pewter dresser for no reason? 

I had purchased a jar of decoupage stuff just for this project ($6.95ish) and by golly I was going to decoupage TODAY!  But what was I going to use to decoupage?  Daylight was fading fast on the LAST NICE DAY OF THE YEAR.  I frantically ran inside and grabbed a huge burlap coffee bag with a green stripe.  Nice and neutral at least.  I slapped a layer of faux mod podge down on the first drawer front and applied the burlap.  The burlap slurped up the glue and showed no sign of adhering.  I painted the top of the burlap with the fmp.  A little better adhesion.  Then I saturated the front of the drawer completely with a ton of fmp.  Hard to tell what was going on under the thick white mess. 

I realized I was not going to have enough fmp at this rate.  So I added an equal portion of water.  I am slopping the mixture all over the other three drawer and pieces of burlap.  At some point I realize that I do not have enough burlap to completely cover the bottom drawer.  Are you kidding me?  I will have to make do.  It was pretty dark by the time I finished and got everything picked up. At least I can let the sticky stinky drawers sit out all night.  I was half way done wolfing down my first meal of the day at 6 pm when my husband came back early from his run -- because it was raining.  The wet sticky stinky drawers are now inside dripping on to newspapers.  This is where it ends for now.  Sometimes it is best to call it a day.