'She's an obsessive, incredible interior designer,' Offerman says, and every so often she'll come through the shop and lay claim to a piece. It's ultimately destined for the artfully decorated Hollywood house he shares with his wife, actress Megan Mullally (best known for her role as kooky Karen Walker on Will & Grace). Just about finished is another table for a feature story in Fine Woodworking about a router jig he invented for flattening slabs. There's a gorgeous hunk of patterned burl, soon to be a coffee table for Parks and Recreation's Rashida Jones. The famous Swanson canoe, which Offerman built, hangs from the ceiling.

One room houses magnificent slabs of salvaged walnut and redwood he's collected over the years from sources in northern California. 'It's really a dreamy man-cave,' Offerman, 41, says of the 3,200-square-foot former photo studio he converted a little more than a decade ago. (The prop department dangered it up for the cameras.) For the record, he always works sober, and the Offerman Woodshop is well-appointed and violation-free. Yes, Offerman is actually a woodworker, with a successful side business crafting handsome custom furniture, canoes, and soon, acoustic guitars, which he likes to play. Ron Swanson's alter ego, actor Nick Offerman is giving a tour of his woodshop in Los Angeles, talking about the joy and meaning of making things. Ron, a man of few words, won't say 'thank you,' but he will give you the greatest present he can think of: something he made by hand.Ĭut to real life. Later, the official finds a gleaming finished canoe on his desk, a gift bow on top. Ron grudgingly gives in, qualifying it as 'bringing my workshop up to the Swanson code,' which just so happens to correspond with city code. The official, who is also Ron's co-worker, orders him to fix it, and even pitches in to help. This is Ron's domain, where 'arbitrary' safety regulations don't apply: There's a wood-burning stove next to an oxygen tank, a rat's nest of wires, and dozens of other violations of city code. In one legendary episode, a city planner visits Ron at his beloved workshop, where he's in his element, crafting a canoe. Ron is also an avid woodworker, so awesomely masterful that he can craft an exquisite harp from scratch in a single night after downing six glasses of whiskey. Ron Swanson, the cult hero of NBC's offbeat comedy series Parks and Recreation, is one of the most weirdly compelling characters on prime-time TV: a deadpan, mustachioed municipal bureaucrat in fictional Pawnee, Indiana, who's a government-hating libertarian, a lover of guns and bacon, and (lest anyone mistake him for a crude caricature) a man of fierce personal integrity, with a sensitive, artistic side.

Ron swanson alter ego