Laundry Room Revamp

I have to say, the heat is officially on in AZ.  While I'm grateful we have a pool to cool off in, the heat just kind of sucks the energy out of me.  I find myself just wanting to sit as still as possible in hopes that it will keep me from constantly sweating.  Luckily our AC works well to get us moving on a few more projects in our home.
Our laundry room is on our first floor next to our garage door and our 1/2 bath. It's maybe 4' x 6' so it's pretty small.  Which makes putting any effort into sprucing it up seem silly at times, but maybe if the room itself is easy on the eye, the chore of laundry won't be as bad. That's sound logic, right?
When we first moved in our laundry room looked like this:

First change I built up the stamina to do was paint the room. I used the same Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter that we have throughout the rest of the house.  It's just a winner I tell ya.

My next project was a bit more on the practical end than the pretty end. But I love it.  We put a piece of MDF board that we had left over across the otherwise empty and useless wall.  And added some hooks for some sweet functionality that normally wouldn't fit in the room.  I loved having it in our laundry breezeway in our last house to hang purses, jackets, laundry stuff, etc.  This set of hooks is already worth it's weight in gold by being able to hang pool towels, swimsuits, purses, laundry etc.

We had a really old set of plastic blinds in the room that served their purpose but I thought we could add a valance of some kind to add some color and excitement to our little room.  My friends and I ventured to a local fabric shop for some inspiration and I came across this beauty.  I picked it up and put it down a few times before I took a giant leap and bought the fabric.  I got almost 2 yards for under $8 so that deal made it much easier to decide!

I was originally planning for the valance to go around the blinds so I could still use them if I wanted to.  But I couldn't put a curtain rod in the room without losing the ability to open a cupboard door.  No thanks.  That's when I decided to ditch the plastic blinds and use a tension rod instead.  The curtain provides enough privacy and I could always unroll the rest to cover the whole window. Or just shut the laundry door.  Problem solved.
My friend, Kelly, helped me out a ton and used her sewing machine to make my vision a reality.  Luckily, it was pretty straight forward.  We hemmed the edges and created a pocket at the top for the rod to go through.  We also stitched the ribbon on the back so it stays in place.  Here's what happened...

Those honey cupboards are screaming for some white paint and pretty knobs but they'll have to wait until another day...

Overall, I'm really happy with what a big impact a few (really inexpensive) projects can have on such a small space.  Now, onto the next project...