Best Senior Parking Spot Ideas and How to Paint One

Some high school senior traditions include painting a senior parking spot. At our high school, only seniors are allowed to paint their parking spots. Warning: it took a lot longer than I thought. You can learn from some of our mistakes. Here are some fun Senior Parking Spot ideas plus tips on how to paint one.

How to Paint a Senior Parking Spot

Painting a senior parking spot is a tradition for many American high schools. However, the more elaborate your design, the more expensive it will be to paint your Senior Parking Spot. 

Now that we’ve been through two kids and painting their senior parking spaces, here are some of the best tips we’ve found through our experiences.

1. Choose Your Design
2. Buy Enough Paint for Your Design 
3. Sweep Your Parking Spot
4. Tape the Outline of Your Parking Spot
5. Prime Your Spot
6. Paint a Base Color (Use a roller with long handle.)
7. Tape Your Design and Paint
8. Take Off Tape While Paint Is Wet
9. Finish Painting Your Design

First, you want to choose your design. We found one my daughter liked online with a simple Google search. My daughter liked the design and colors and wanted to add a little Harry Styles love to her Senior Parking Spot.

Our second daughter also chose One Direction, but wanted a more simple design, so we used less paint. 

We headed to Lowes to buy the paint and supplies.

How Much Paint Do You Need to Paint a Senior Parking Spot?

For the background solid color, you need at least a gallon of paint. If you’re creating a design with other colors, then we found that pints worked well.

Sweep Your Parking Spot

You want to sweep your senior parking spot first to get debris and rocks off the space. This is also helpful if you’re painting over another spot, because sometimes that paint flakes off.

Paint the Parking Spot a Solid Color 

We bought a gallon of white exterior paint, because that’s the color we decided to paint the parking spot to start with a clean base. If there’s any way you can paint the spot the night before, do it, because it takes a while to dry. It took at least a couple hours for ours to dry, and we live in Florida with plenty of heat.

We used a long roller to paint it and choose a fat, fluffy, roller cover. It’s easier to paint with.

With our second try, we were allowed to paint the spot the night before and it was so much better! But I wish we had primed the spot. Since the paint has primer in it we didn’t think we had to, but when my daughter drove to school the next day, some of the paint came off with the tires. 

Tape the Lines

Next, you’ll want to section off what you want to paint and tape the lines. First tape the outline of your spot, so you don’t get paint on someone else’s spot. We used blue painters tape, because of our design.

We made the mistake of using masking tape the 2nd time around, and we should have used the painter’s tape.

Many people just free-handed their Senior parking spot design, but we were not that talented.

My husband made the circle by squatting down, extending his arm, and then drawing a circle with chalk while turning around. He and my daughter then went over it with tape and tried to fix the imperfections.

Start Painting ASAP

Another Senior Parking Spot tip: If your whole school has a specific day to paint your senior parking spots, don’t wait until the night before to go to Lowes or the paint store. That’s what happened to us, and they ran out of exterior paint in quart sizes, so we just used interior paint. Two weeks later, everything still looked great, but it may wear faster over time. 

ETA: At the end of the year the colors had faded some, but it still worked and lasted her whole Senior Year. 

We used exterior paint for daughter #2, and honestly we actually liked the interior paint better.

To paint the parking spot, we just poured some paint straight out of the can onto the ground and painted. I wish we had bought more of the tiny rollers. They were easier and faster to use than the spongey brushes.

We started at the top with our design, because you don’t want to paint yourself into a corner. Then we did the circle, and then finished the bottom. Because it was so hot, the paint dried pretty quickly. 

After everything was dry, we peeled up the tape, and it came off pretty easily! However, it’s best to pull the tape while the paint was wet. With this design we couldn’t, because of how many lines there were. 

With our other parking spot, it would have been easier. Since it was dry, it pulled up some of the paint underneath.

How to Paint Letters for Senior Parking Spots

If you want to paint bigger letters, then stencils may be easier.

But we bought little stencils for the small lettering and it was a pain, so we decided to free hand it, and most people seemed to do the same.

First, we used chalk to outline the letters, then painted over the chalk.

And done!

All in all, it took about 7 hours from start to finish. It was a hot day, so bring plenty of water.

The 1D design only took about 3 hours, because it involved less paint and design.

Some people brought canopy shades, but if you have people painting next to you, set them up behind the spots to relax in when you need a break.

Have fun!

What Kind of Paint Should You Use for Senior Parking Spots?

For painting senior parking spots, the best type of paint to use is exterior paint. However, the interior paint also worked fine and lasted all year. The interior paint was easier to work with in out opinion, so don’t fret if exterior is sold out. I wouldn’t recommend using chalk paint because it fades and washes off easily. 

In total, it cost us about $80 for the painting supplies, but we also bought a lot of different colors. 

For our second daughter’s parking space, it cost us about $50. 

Best Senior Parking Spot Ideas

It’s amazing to see how creative people are! It started to rain as were finishing up, so I didn’t get to snap too many pictures of other senior parking spot ideas, but these Senior Parking Spot ideas were really cute. 

Here are some fun Senior Parking Spot ideas:

• favorite hobbies
• future or favorite colleges
• favorite sports teams
• favorite TV shows
• favorite movies
• favorite characters
• funny quotes for graduation
• favorite musicians
• favorite songs
• inspirational quotes
• video games
• funny Senior parking spot ideas to claim their parking spaces
• Spotify songs

Just have fun with it!

How does Senior Parking Spot Paint Hold Up a Year Later?

After a year and a summer of use, here’s how painted parking spots hold up. So don’t worry about perfection. Tires and weather are gonna happen all year. They still look pretty good, but it’s all for fun!