This Absolute Smoke Show Turned Down Modeling to Sling Plaster on Walls, Now She’s Raking in $336K a Year

In a world full of people chasing soft lighting and easy likes, Swedish-born Johanna Juhlin looked at modeling offers, said “hard pass,” and decided she’d rather get covered in drywall dust and plaster instead. Spoiler: it worked out better than the catwalk ever could.

Juhlin, now 30 and based in the U.S. (with roots and business ties back to Sweden), started from absolute zero in the trades. She didn’t inherit a family crew or walk into an easy apprenticeship. She built skills the hard way, volunteering and taking on renovations, often for free or cheap early on, just to train her hands and assemble a real portfolio of finished work. While a lot of people her age were still figuring out brunch, she was treating other people’s unfinished walls like a personal gym.

Then she did the move that changed everything. She pulled out her phone and filmed herself actually doing the work. One clip of her plastering/mudding a wall (or similar finishing work) hit around 16 million views. That single video flipped the script. The free and low-pay gigs turned into a legitimate company with a real schedule and a waiting list. Clients started reaching out on their own. Paint, compound, and tool manufacturers came calling because they finally understood the assignment: people want a real tradeswoman standing in the dust with a trowel, not some actress in clean overalls on a staged set.

Watch the montage circulating with the story and it all tracks. Blonde hair, visible tattoos, moving through unfinished rooms and even pool renovations in form-fitting work clothes, tight bodysuits, crop tops, shorts, jeans, while actually swinging tools, sanding, rolling paint, and finishing surfaces. The work stayed dirty and physical. The money just started arriving from three directions at once.

Her core plastering, drywall finishing, and renovation jobs bring in roughly $6,000 a month. The platforms pay another $3,000–$5,000 a month for the content. Brand deals and manufacturer partnerships start at $8,000 and climb from there. Add it up, and you’re looking at about $336,000 a year.

Juhlin has built a serious following by showing the real process, not the sanitized version. She’s shared everything from interior restoration work to the physical grind, all while maintaining the fitness that lets her keep up on job sites. Brands noticed because authenticity sells better than a posed hard-hat photoshoot. Clients noticed because the finishes speak for themselves.

Plenty of people in the comments will reduce it to “she’s hot, that’s why it blew up.” Fair enough, the camera doesn’t hate her. But waiting lists, manufacturer deals, and six-figure income don’t materialize just from good lighting and tight jeans. The walls still have to be right. The jobs still have to get done clean.

She turned down the path that was handed to her on looks alone, picked up the tools, filmed the process, and turned a traditional trade into a multi-stream business that prints money. One video changed the trajectory. Everything after that was just consistent execution.

Not a bad career decision for the woman who decided the modeling world wasn’t worth it.