Making It Together: Inside Evan & Katelyn's Rise From IKEA Hack to Trusted DIY YouTubers

For nearly 10 years, Evan and Katelyn have built a dedicated audience thanks to their DIY videos, where they turn everyday ideas into fun, creative hacks that viewers can do at home. 

Whether it's a simple home renovation like remodeling an office, restoring furniture with resin, or something completely outlandish like building the world’s biggest laptop, the hilarious married duo have gone beyond regular YouTube makers by proving that almost any idea (no matter how ambitious or ridiculous) is worth trying. 

However, what really sets them apart from other DIY Creators is the community they built around their channel. 

Today, the couple has an impressive fanbase of nearly 3.6 million followers across social media—a popularity that has allowed them to create a credible brand filled with partnerships and Creator collaborations, a successful merch store, and a content empire across YouTube. 

In this Creator Spotlight, we’ll break down Evan and Katelyn’s extraordinary career and explore how a mechanical engineer and a graphic designer built a business out of wanting to spend more time together. 

Two Makers, Two Very Different Starting Points

Evan and Katelyn Heling met on their first day of college at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio. 

They were friends for years before eventually becoming a couple, giving them plenty of time to build the close relationship and chemistry that would later become a big part of their videos.

But when it came to making things, they came from completely different backgrounds. 

Katelyn grew up interested in art, drawing fan art inspired by The Legend of Zelda and The Lord of the Rings, but didn't start using power tools until she was an adult. 

Evan had always loved taking things apart, building things, and wandering through hardware stores. 

That interest eventually led him to become an engineer, designing tools and developing new products for the oil and gas industry, while Katelyn worked as a freelance graphic designer.

Their first project together wasn't actually a YouTube channel, but a blog that documented their home renovations and DIY projects after buying their first house as newlyweds.

Since they were trying to save money, they learned how to tackle many of the projects themselves.

Around the same time, they also started filming short clips of their everyday lives for a personal "one second a day" video project. 

They didn't know it yet, but the couple was already getting comfortable documenting their lives on camera long before creating videos became their full-time job.

The Decision to Build Something Together

By 2017, Evan and Katelyn decided to make the jump from blogging to creating content. 

As more people moved away from traditional TV and toward online video, they realized there was room for Creators willing to learn how to film and edit their own content.

But their biggest reason for starting a channel was much simpler—they wanted to work together. 

Rather than spending most of their days at separate nine-to-five jobs, the couple saw YouTube as a way to build something as a team with the benefit of spending all their time together.

In March 2017, they decided to start with a quick three-minute video hack, showing how to add hardware to an IKEA Malm dresser. 

Although the video looks very basic with amateur editing and inconsistent audio, it actually took them around 50 hours to film.

It also taught them what shots they needed and how to act naturally on camera. 

Both have since stated that if they'd started with a bigger project, like the garage remodel they tackled soon after, they probably would have forgotten to film much of what they needed.

Finding a Voice Nobody Else in the Space Had

The next couple of years saw a lot of experimentation and growth for them as Creators.

Not only were they moving on from simple craft builds and extending their videos, but they were also elevating their content with better production quality, more humor, and incorporating their workbench in the garage as their new backdrop. 

Gradually, their audience started to grow, and with that, so did their projects. Evan and Katelyn got more creative, venturing into one-of-a-kind builds like a custom supersoaker, concrete table coasters, and 3D-printed objects like crated jewelry and their signature Damascus knife. 

Moreover, the couple got heavily into resin, a synthetic substance that starts as a thick liquid and hardens into a durable, solid material, by incorporating it into a lot of their projects and builds.

As their DIY skills improved and their projects grew more inventive, Evan and Katelyn quickly climbed the YouTube ladder and established themselves as popular makers. 

But it wasn’t just their skills that brought people to their channel. What really made viewers fall in love with their content was how they presented their projects.

You see, there are plenty of YouTube channels that teach people how to build things. Some get straight to the point, while others add a gimmick or create a distinct persona to stand out.

For Evan and Katelyn, it was their relationship. Not only did they have a fun and wholesome back-and-forth with one another, but their natural chemistry quickly became just as important to the videos as the projects themselves.

Behind the scenes, they also learned to divide the work based on what each person did best. Katelyn handles most of the editing, including music and pacing, along with many of the branding and business decisions. 

Evan focuses more on the technical side, including CAD designs, rough video edits, and maintaining their website. They split filming and on-camera responsibilities more evenly. Rather than trying to divide every task 50/50, they each found a role that played to their strengths.

The first major sign that their approach was working came when a video about making a concrete planter suddenly took off. 

For a couple of weeks, the video reportedly brought in between 1,000 and 2,000 new subscribers every day before eventually slowing down. It was their first real taste of how quickly a YouTube video could take off and completely change the growth of a channel.

From One Channel to a Whole YouTube Network

One of the biggest lessons from Evan and Katelyn's growth is that they didn't limit themselves to a single YouTube channel. 

As their audience grew, they created new channels for different types of content instead of trying to fit everything into one place. Today, their YouTube network includes:

Evan and Katelyn (Main Channel)

The one that started it all and is still their biggest channel, with 1.6 million subscribers. Here, featuring everything from resin art, woodworking, and concrete projects to 3D printing, home makeovers, strange builds, and plenty of cat-related content.

Evan and Katelyn 2

This channel is dedicated to miscellaneous content like cooking, beauty, crafts, and other projects that don't quite fit their main channel.

Evan and Katelyn Gaming and Gaming Uncut Channel

These channels feature gaming content from their Twitch streams, including titles like Minecraft, Subnautica, Valheim, and The Forest, while keeping the same fun back-and-forth viewers enjoy in their DIY videos.

Evan and Katelyn Uncut 

Here, viewers get full, unedited versions of their videos where they show the full process behind their projects. 

Evan and Katelyn Extras 

A collection of some of their best moments. These 3-5 minute video clips highlight videos from all their channels. 

Evan and Katelyn Podcast

In 2019, the couple started their own video podcast, which became an outlet for them to talk about their life behind the scenes and what it takes to create content on YouTube. 

Though the podcast is currently on a definite hiatus, it shows that even established Creators sometimes need to put certain types of content aside as their priorities change.

Outside of YouTube, they've expanded their reach even further with regular Twitch streams, a Discord community, and accounts across Instagram, X, TikTok, and Facebook. 

Though their main audience is on YouTube, their ability to spread across multiple platforms shows that sticking to one platform can only take you so far. 

Shop Evan & Katelyn: Merch Built From Inside Jokes

Evan and Katelyn's official Fourthwall store is filled with products inspired by jokes, sayings, and moments their longtime viewers already know.

Their "Words Are Hard" collection, for example, includes more than a dozen colors and styles across T-shirts, hoodies, and sweaters. What started as a recurring joke with their audience eventually became an entire merch collection. 

Other products, like their "It'll Be Fine" tie-dye tee and "Make Fail" logo, follow the same approach by turning familiar references from their content into something fans can wear.

Their shop also goes well beyond basic T-shirts. Fans can choose from hoodies, knitwear, joggers, hats, mugs, stickers, kids' apparel, and more. They even sell a "Fidget Blade Box Opener," a unique product that fits naturally with their DIY and maker-focused brand.

More importantly, Evan and Katelyn make their merch easy to discover while fans are already watching their content. 

By connecting their Fourthwall shop to the YouTube Merch Shelf, they can feature products below their YouTube videos, letting viewers discover their latest merch without leaving the channel. 

For other Creators, there are two useful lessons here. 

First, you don't always need to come up with merch ideas from scratch. Pay attention to the jokes, phrases, and moments your audience already loves, then turn them into products your biggest fans will immediately recognize. 

Second, make those products easy to find by integrating your store directly into the platforms where your audience already spends its time.

Turning a Hobby Into a Full-Time Job

At first, neither Evan nor Katelyn walked away from their day jobs to start this. 

Evan kept working as a mechanical engineer while the channel grew, and Katelyn gradually scaled back her freelance graphic design hours as YouTube could support more of her time. 

That slow, deliberate transition (rather than a leap of faith) is arguably one of the most useful parts of their story for anyone hoping to follow a similar path.

Just as important, they never depended on a single source of income. Their revenue today comes from a genuinely diversified mix:

• YouTube ad revenue spread across multiple channels
• Twitch subscriptions and streaming income
• Patreon membership tiers offering bonus and behind-the-scenes content
• YouTube channel memberships
• Branded merchandise

No single one of those has to carry the whole business, which has let them keep making the content they want to make even when any one platform's numbers dip.

What Creators Can Learn From Evan and Katelyn 

When asked in a 2022 interview with Inverse what advice they'd give someone starting out, Katelyn pointed to a simple question for Creators to reflect on.

“Figure out why you want to make content,” she states. “Is it just to have fun, to learn, to turn into a job, to meet new people? Creating content is very time-consuming and can often be an expensive investment, so it’s good to keep your ‘why’ in mind while making decisions about how you’ll be going about it.”

Another reason why their channel has become so successful is that they never let YouTube’s algorithm control what they create. 

Sure, they'll pay attention to things like titles and thumbnails, but they don't want views or trends deciding what projects they build or what games they play. 

When their views or subscriber growth slows down, they try to focus less on pleasing the algorithm and more on why they started creating together in the first place.

Communication has also played a major role in making their relationship and business work. They regularly talk about their goals, ideas, and long-term plans so they're on the same page before starting a project. 

They also aren't afraid to show viewers when something goes wrong. Mistakes, last-minute design changes, and stressful deadlines often stay in the final video because they're part of the process. 

That’s because rather than pretending every project goes perfectly, Evan and Katelyn let their audience see what it actually takes to figure things out along the way.

From a Dresser Hack to Professional YouTubers

What started as one small DIY video has grown into seven YouTube channels, an active Twitch community, a Patreon, and a merch store filled with products inspired by their own jokes and content. 

Nearly a decade later, Evan and Katelyn’s basic approach hasn't changed much. They've simply found more ways to turn the projects they enjoy making together into content their audience wants to watch.

Their story also shows that you don't need to have everything figured out before you start. 

Back in 2017, they saw an opportunity in video because filming and editing took more work to learn than simply writing a blog post. 

That same learning curve still exists today, which means there's still room for Creators willing to pick up a camera, experiment, and improve as they go.

After all, Evan and Katelyn's first video took around 50 hours to film. Sometimes, getting started matters more than getting it perfect.

Find Evan & Katelyn: YouTube · Twitch · Discord · Instagram · TikTok · X · Facebook · Shop Evan & Katelyn