Sunday
Arrive
Someone is at the airport with your name on a card. You check in, and the rest of the night is yours. Go walk Truckee.
November 2-6, 2026 · Truckee, California
Learn the finishes. Then learn how the business runs.
Five days in Truckee with two Novacolor ambassadors. You learn the finishes from people who teach this trade internationally, you apply those finishes to a real client's wall, and you go home with the playbook for pricing, sourcing and running the shop.
Seats
6
Tuition
$5,000
Apply by
Friday, September 26
Level
Working pro
Why this one
You leave with a finished wall, real client experience, and the playbook.
This isn't five days of demos. You're living and working with us for the week. Every session builds a real wall for a real Truckee business: you meet the client, you hear what they want, and you put it on the wall together. It stays there.
Because the jobsite changes everything. Deadlines, client expectations, lighting, imperfections, decisions. None of that exists on a sample board.
This is for you if
- You already apply decorative finishes for money.
- You're stuck selling feature walls and want to sell whole houses.
- You're guessing at product and sourcing and tired of guessing.
- You want the business side, not just the trowel side.
This isn't a beginner class. If you've never put material on a wall, this isn't the week for you.
The week
Every day blends the craft, the business, and real client work.
Monday
Foundations
Picked up at 7:30. Coffee and breakfast at the studio while we walk the week. Nine o'clock we start. First layer goes on every finish you're going to learn. After lunch we head to the client's location and put the first coat on the real wall.
Tuesday
Build
Coat two, in the studio and on the wall. This is where the material starts behaving differently and you learn why. Playbook chapter over lunch. Dinner together.
Wednesday
Depth
Coat three. Burnishing, movement, how to read a surface and know what it needs next. More time on the client wall while the light is good.
Thursday
Finish
Waxing, sanding, the fine detail, the touch-ups. The difference between good and finished is the whole day. Then we clean the site back up so the client can open.
Friday
Breakfast at your wall
This session's client is a cafe, so we eat breakfast in front of the wall you built. Photos, tools, goodbyes. Then you fly home.
The business half
You go home with the Rebel Playbook.
The Rebel Playbook is what it sounds like: what made us successful, written down and handed over. It's our mindset and our ethos. It starts with authenticity and integrity, and with selling yourself before you sell a finish. Learn to sell who you are, do your best work, and put that intention into it, and the rest follows. We work a chapter a day, over lunch and while the material sets.
On pricing, we show you exactly how we price in our market. Alongside it you get two people who built plaster businesses in two very different markets, and a week of access to ask them anything while you're standing at the wall.
01
The material and the method
What each finish actually is, what it wants, and how many coats it really takes. Tools and abrasives, and why the expensive paper is cheaper.
02
Pricing and selling
How we price, and how we talk about plaster against paint. We argue for lime over acrylic because we believe it, and that conviction is most of the sale. What we charge is a starting point, not a formula for your market.
03
Where to buy and who to know
Kyle and Andy's shortlist. Which distributors actually take care of you, which products are worth the money, and the introductions that come with having been in the room.
04
Running the shop
Crew, systems, and the reasons this works. How to build a team that can put your name on a wall when you aren't standing there.
Who is teaching
Trained by the people other plasterers fly to learn from.
Kyle Railton
Novacolor Ambassador, 2026
Thirty-five years in the trades and fifteen in Venetian plaster. Named a Novacolor ambassador in 2026 and won their bootcamp in Venice that May. Teaches internationally and takes commissions that owners often call their favorite thing in the house.
Andy Robinson
Founder, Stucco & Stucco
Andy founded Stucco & Stucco in the UK, where he supplies Novacolor and trains applicators, and he runs the place. Novacolor named him an ambassador in 2018, eight years before Kyle, and he's the one who taught Kyle. He's designing the wall you're going to build, and he's flying in for the week.
The room
The room is small on purpose.
This is the part you can't get from a video. Six applicators, one studio, every meal together for five days. You build a wall as a team, you argue about material over dinner, and you spend the week around people who do what you do at the level you do it. Small rooms are where real professional relationships get made. That's why there are six seats and not twenty.
Kyle and Andy, up close
Six people means real time with both of them, not a seat in the back of a lecture. You spend five days working beside them, eating with them, and asking the things you would never get to ask at a demo. You leave having actually worked with them.
The people they know
Between them, Kyle and Andy know the distributors, the manufacturers and the applicators worth knowing across three continents. Over five days you hear who they trust and why, which is a shortcut you won't find in a supplier catalog.
Your cohort
Five other working professionals, picked from the applications. You'll spend more time with them than with anyone else that week. The group isn't a side effect of the week, it's half of what you're paying for.
$5,000 per applicator
Book your flight. We have the rest.
You're staying at Springhill Suites, Truckee. From the moment somebody picks you up at the airport until they drop you back off, the week is covered. Room, rides, every meal, and the material you'll be working with.
- Five nights of lodging
- Every ride, from the airport and back
- Breakfast, lunch and dinner
- Wine with dinner
- All materials
- A CO.ME tool kit to take home
- A few things to take home that we are not going to spoil
Not included
- Your flights
- Cocktails and the bar afterwards
6 seats
Apply
Six seats. Tell us who you are and we'll come back to you either way.
Applications close
Friday, September 26
You hear back by
Tuesday, September 30
What we ask
- 01 Name, business, city
- 02 How long you've been applying finishes
- 03 What you're using now, products and tools
- 04 Your favorite thing you've made, with a photo, and why it's your favorite
- 05 What you want to walk out of the week with
- 06 The part of the business you find hardest
- 07 A number between 1 and 100. We are not telling you why.
Questions
How good do I need to be?
Working level. You should be applying finishes for paying clients already. We aren't teaching you to hold a trowel. We're working on the finishes you offer and on how you price them.
What if I have never used these products?
That's fine and it's part of the point. You'll use them all week and you'll leave knowing where to buy them and who to call.
Do I need to bring tools?
No. Everything is here, and you go home with a kit.
Can I bring someone from my crew?
Only if they take one of the six seats. There are no observers. Everybody works.
What if I don't get a seat?
We'll tell you either way, and we'll tell you why. There are six seats, this is the first time we've run it, and nothing else is on the calendar. We'd like to do it again, but we're not going to promise a date we haven't set. If this is the week you want, apply for it.