Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to talk wall bars. 

What is a wall bar you say? Well, remember those vertical climbing walls that lined the walls in your school gymnasium. It’s those things. Except, fashun. 

If you have visited this website before, you are well familiar with my ongoing obsession with an exciting and fast-growing Norwegian design brand that goes by the name of KAOS. It all started when two young women had children and realized that many of the products that they wanted and needed either simply didn’t exist, or that they just weren’t good enough. 

The pair began developing products in 2014 and launched the following year with the Ransel diaper bag and Samlesak playbag. The idea was to create products for parents that would last beyond the newborn stage and adapt to fit the needs of your kids and family as they grow. For instance, the Ransel diaper bag is designed to look less like a diaper bag and more like a stylish and functional backpack you can continue to use long after you leave the changing pad behind. 

Fast forward to 2020, and Gineline Kalleberg and Mette Bordal Hansel have built a thriving business, headquartered in their studio in Torshov, a neighborhood of Oslo, having designed a magnificent line of kid-and-parent-friendly gear and furniture, including a modular wall bar system dubbed Endeløs, and the collapsible Klapp high chair. (US safety certification for the latter is in the works and likely to come in 2021, though I might have to smuggle two in my oversized suitcase before then because I simply can’t live without!)

The Endeløs wall bar system is in my opinion, an absolute stroke of genius.

These solid wood ash bars come flat packed (as all good scandinavian furniture should), complete with a hex wrench so you don’t need to dig up your old Ikea scraps (protip: we bought a 20-piece hex wrench set of our own a few years back, I’ve never looked back.) 

Assembly is straightforward. Insert the bars into the side pieces and tighten the bolts, and you’re halfway there. Installation depends a bit on your use case, for wall bars that kids will be climbing, or where you’ll be hanging more weighty items, you might want to anchor into a stud on at least one side (again protip: a stud finder is an essential tool for every home IMO). Start from the bottom and work your way up. If you need the instruction manual, it’s right there to guide you. 

Which brings me to my next, and probably most important point: the versatility of this system. Note that “Endeløs” means endless in Norwegian, and it’s a play not only on the modular design – you can stack multiple units together to create your own configuration – but also on the endless ways you can use this piece of furniture. 

I would know, because at this point, I am steadily mounting KAOS Endeløs wall bars in pretty much every room in the house. Use it in a kid’s room, at first as a playful climbing area (I don’t know about you but my kids are spending an awful lot of time indoors these days so could use the stimuli), as they grow to school age, add the desktop shelf to create a space for homework and arts and crafts. A few accessories and organizers  and you’ve got an elegant piece of furniture to elevate their space that will grow with them. 

(Sofie has already told me several times that the wall bars are her, and I quote, “favorite thing ever.”)

And while these may be originally intended for kids, we’ve installed the horizontal setup in our den for elegant and discrete additional storage. Store magazines and books here, and you might even clip your Samlesak playbag to the bottom rung to keep the floors clear of clutter.  

 

Add hooks and hang coats in the entryway or mudroom, pots and pans in the kitchen, supplies and clean clothes in the laundry room, you name it. Just look at their Instagram account and you’ll see what feels like millions of examples of happy customers who have found the perfect place and use for this system. 

Especially as we are spending more time at home, finding great solutions for storage and play is so important. Gineline and Mette even had the ingenious idea of adding a wobble board in their studio, creating a small slide at the bottom of the wall bars. 

Over the summer we received our first shipment of the KAOS Endeløs Wall bar systems, in a few different configurations, and we are SO SO SO excited to announce that these are now available to shop at Blue House Goods. So hop on over to our shop and start assembling your own version. We can’t wait to see what you come up with! As with all things Endeløs, you do you.