Woman who lived in Home Alone house during filming reveals what it was like

A woman who grew up in the real life Home Alone house during the creation of the 1990 Christmas classic movie has revealed what it was really like at the time of filming.

For many, it is the greatest festive film ever made and embodies everything about the festive spirit (paint cans and irons to the face aside, maybe). And the warm fuzzy feeling that the film gives many is personified in the house at the centre of filming.

Home Alone follows Macaulay Culkin, who plays eight-year-old Kevin McCallister as he defends their family home in suburban Chicago from the Wet Bandits, Harry and Marv (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern).

It sees Kevin turn their huge, idyllic home into a boobytrapped jungle of painful goings on for the hapless criminal duo.

And the home is a very real property worth £4 million just outside of Chicago, Illinois.

Currently in the process of being sold for millions of dollars, it has had a huge makeover since its 1990 days.

But go back 34 years and you had an actual family living in the property. Among those living there, in the wealthy neighbourhood of Winnetka, was Lauren Abendshien.

Lauren Abendshien, whose parents owned the famous McCallister house when the movie was filmed (ITV)

Now 40 years old, she was six at the time of the film being made.

Recalling what life at the house was like during the months of filming that took place there, she told ITV's This Morning that they actively lived in the house while filming was happening.

She said: "We stayed in the house pretty much the entire period, which was about four or five months.

"In order to avoid appearing onscreen, we would have to crawl around the window line from room to room."

The Home Alone house in the film (20th Century Fox)

The house regularly hosted crew and cast during downtime, too, with Macaulay Culkin and younger brother Kieran spending a lot of time indoors.

Abendshein said: "They would spend time in the house when they weren't filming their scenes.

"Macaulay Culkin used my room to study with his tutor and his brother [Kieran], wasn't filming as much, so he would just hang out in my room."

On the success of the film, the Abendshien family said it was 'something special' but that they couldn't have imagined just how big it has become.

The Home Alone house (20th Century Fox)

"It was very surreal when the movie came out and all of a sudden it's holiday season in 1990 and it was an endless row of cars and people wanted to see the house and take photographs and that was very new to us, but we grew to love it and we shared the magic of the movie," she said.

While external shots of the house were the real deal, a lot of the internal shots were actually from somewhere two miles down the road.

The film's indoor scenes were shot at New Trier Township High School, an abandoned property that was big enough for the production to create the appropriate sets and a sound stage, with director Chris Columbus unable to do the stunts inside the house due to the space needed for the film crew.