Chalkboard Closet Doors for my Son

We moved in with my parents a few months ago to make things a little easier as I finish grad school, but until recently my son's room has been woefully neglected.  I've finally started sprucing it up a bit. 

Part of the problem has been that while I have wanted to paint a mural on his wall, there was no available surface.  Two walls have that wood paneling and the other two have this horrible texture (BTW, if you know a cheap DIY trick for removing texture from walls, please share it with me).  That left the closet.

The chalkboard that was in my last post - my son loves to write on it.  All the time.  So much so that I rarely get to use it.  I decided he needed one of his own.

I took down the old closet doors, which had this beat-up map glued down on it as long as they've owned the house (which is quite a while).  I gave them two coats of chalkboard paint and then painted this mural over parts of the chalkboard surface with acrylic paints.

I also gave the mural part 2 coats of clear poly-coat varnish so that it would hold up to the abuse of a two and a half year old.

I added a couple cup holder hooks and a pair of $1 metal buckets from Target to hold the chalk and the eraser.  I also bought a pair of matte black closet door handles and I had to buy one more tube of brown paint - otherwise everything else came out of my stash so I think the whole project cost me about $12.

Above is what it looked like before I "cured" the chalkboard surface (if you haven't used the stuff, that just means you rub the side of a piece of chalk all over the surface so that things erase more easily from it).

And here it is after it was cured and with the closet door handles in place.  I had a little fun myself before he got to it.

He'll see it later today and I am pretty sure he's going to love it.  :)