Buy One-of-a-Kind Chairs for a Great Cause

Have you ever seen a door hinge as a chair arm or a chair back made out of a toilet plunger? If you're a home scavenger constantly looking for one-of-a-kind pieces, then you'll want to hear about an event in Portland, Ore. that's bringing original art - in the form of a chair - to the highest bidders.

Aptly named The Chair Affair, it's a silent charity auction ending this Thursday that has brought together more than 100 artists to design original "chair" masterpieces ranging in price from $100 to $6,500. Working with materials that range from vintage frames to chests to rocking chairs, and enhancing chairs with copper, fur, paper mache, sea shells or infused glass, each artist is making a distinctly different creation.

"It's a venue that [the artists] don't ever work in," says Linda Dahan, the development director for the Portland-based non-profit, Community Warehouse."They wouldn't ever do a chair... that's the intrigue for them."