I'll respond item by item.

Boy oh boy do I understand the lack of energy and hand issues. I bought the WarmWindows yardage for this window >ten years< (with 50% off coupons from Joann's) before I sewed it up. Dear Daughter's window shade failed so I had to move the dining room shade to her room and that meant the dining room window was suddenly bare. The Roman shade instantly sky-rocketed to the top of the to-do list. Dear Daughter didn't need the Roman shade as she also had a window quilt, sheers, and lined drapes. The dining room window only has a decorative valence.

With regards to your sliders. A lined, interlined drape on a traverse rod is the way to go. Get a heavy-duty Kirsch rod to support the weight. You can make insulated, lined pinch-pleated drapes to fit. I have and I'll never do that again. Instead, use pleater hooks. They will magically pleat the drapes and you won't have to sew those *&^%^ pleats by hand. Even better, the pleater hooks are removable so you can more easily hang out the heavy drapes on your clothesline and let the wind beat them clean of dust.

The traverse rod gives you control of the exact position of the drapes.

As for bedroom window. Use window shades and quilts that fit the individual windows even when they are side by side. Don't treat them as a single unit for the window shades because if you do, you can't open one without opening the other. Side-by-side shades do gap in the middle but they move independently of each other.

Back to the dining room Roman shade.

I did NOT use the magnetic strips. We made a major mistake when we installed the supporting headboard. We made it three inches deep to better accommodate the stackback of the shades. As a result, the fully opened shade stands clear of the window by three inches. I should have used a one or one and one/half inch wide support board; one just wide enough for the metal brackets and used more brackets. I won't make that mistake when I get around to the over the sink kitchen windows. I don't believe the stackback would hang any differently if I'd used a narrower supporting headboard.

The finished shade looks exactly like a window shade. The reverse (street-facing) side is creamy white; it's the fabric that WarmWindows uses to back their product. For the fashion side facing the room, I wanted something that would reflect as much room light as possible. Thus, when fully opened, the Roman shade is a flat panel of white fabric. It's boring. A fashionable fabric would have looked better but it wouldn't have been as fully reflective of the dining/kitchen lighting as a white surface.

Whenever possible, I think about the reflectivity of my walls, ceilings, floors, and window treatments.

The price knocked me out. I used my 50% off coupon at Joanne's to buy the yardage.

The great advantage of the WarmWindows (now that I've used it) is it reflects heat better than anything else I've tried and it does it with a single layer.

I would reserve the WarmWindows only for those windows where you >have< to have maximum efficiency AND you can't have multiple layers of window treatments because of greasy dust. Thus, the WarmWindow Roman shade in our small dining room which is an extension of our kitchen.

The other advantage which I am discovering as I get older, is that it's much, much easier to operate one Roman shade as opposed to taking the window quilts in and out, adjusting the shades up and down, and opening and closing the draperies for every single window.

I >might< go the WarmWindows route again IF we ever get around to installing two windows in our upstairs bonus room simply because I will need maximum efficiency in that poorly heated and cooled space. Otherwise, we'll manage with what we have.

As for my uncurtained over the sink windows: I'll sew Roman shades for them, using a one inch deep support headboard, but it's going to be made of muslin and scrap batting. I won't spend the $$$ for WarmWindows for this pair of windows. They don't need it.