I’m designing a collection of Christmas patterns and one thing that always come to my mind when I think about Christmas is the movie Home Alone. It was a funny story, there was some strong 90’s vibe and it was on the TV every year, so I watched many times. I remember especially the McCallister’s house, it was so gorgeous and it was it’s own character. In my mind, that was the ultimate Christmas house, so I decided to take a look and get some inspiration for my next illustration project. Let’s visit it together!
When I was a kid I dreamed about living in a mansion just like this. Georgian style, no fences, a beautiful garden and lots of charming windows. Just amazing! Lets take a look inside!
Above you see the entry hall with an overwhelming red and green wallpaper. The walls are decorated with family pictures and some botanical illustrations. There are some white poinsettias at the door and other red and green details like the rugs and chairs. A fun fact: on the first picture you can see a large window above the stairs, but in the last picture you see a green wall with doors. This happened because the scenes on the main floor were recorded in the real house, and the upstairs scenes were recorded in a studio. Do you see the difference? I never noticed that before!
The house has a very traditional floorplan with a rooms for everything, completely different from the open floor current obsession.
The living room layout is a bit weird for a family with 5 children, I feel there is not enough places to seat if they want to gather everybody in this room. And what if they have visitors? No wonder they seem so stressed! And what is this living room wall paper? Christmas wreaths? How about the velvet green sofa and the jacquard curtains? It looks like it’s permanently Christmas at the McCallister’s!
I love houses with a separate dining room, it’s just so nice! The choice of furniture, table cloth, art frames and light fixture are all so traditional, it reminds me of some old grandma houses, I feel nostalgic about it.
The kitchen is a 90’s dream! I absolutely adore the huge kitchen island and the tiled countertop, it’s been so many years I haven’t seen one of those! When I was a kid, one of my rich neighbours had a dark green tiled countertop and I thought that was the maximum luxury someone could ever have! How naïve!
The collection of red cookware hanging is just amazing and what do you think about those stairs in the eating area? The wallpaper? The huge table? The ruffled curtains? The porcelain swan? This kitchen is a nostalgic dream, I would love to have breakfast there before going for some ice skating.
Here we can take a look at the master suite. The wallpaper and the red bed sheets are so overwhelming it’s hard to focus on anything else. But once I did, I got a bit disappointed! What’s up with the tacky wall art? Those are just cheap prints and badly framed. How about the objects on the shelves? Nothing beautiful or memorable. At least the chest and the vintage sewing machine are cool. I wonder if Kate McCallister worked with fashion, because you can see a lot of mannequins and sewing supplies around the house.
How about the white swan wallpaper for the main washroom? I guess swans were trending in the 90s! I also found many swans in my You’ve Got Mail analysis.
The suite washroom is the one in the famous scene after the after shave. The space is basic but, why so many green and white towels everywhere? How about the red artificial flowers? They look just terrible. The gold accents on the shelves, fixtures and mirror frame reinforce the Christmas theme, and what colour is the marble? Dark green, of course.
We don’t get to see the girls bedrooms but here is a glimpse of Buzz and Jeff bedroom. Buzz is a big fan of sports, with lots of basketball posters and baseball memorabilia. He also loves board games and he is full in his teen years with all the bikini posters. The striped wallpaper reminds me of baseball uniforms. There is even a wallpaper border with some players. We can’t see the other bedroom but we quickly peak at the lovely dots wallpaper. Since most of the toys are boy’s toys, I assume this is Jeff’s bedroom, but maybe it’s Kevin’s… who knows?
The attic and basement are the clutters paradise, there is so much stuff! Basically everything from all members of the family are here: toys, clothes, maternity pillows, sewing machines, appliances, laundry baskets, tools… it’s insane! Kevin was afraid and I would be too if I lived there! Those mannequins are just so creepy!
And that was basically the whole house from inside. There is way more tacky décor and clutter than I remembered. I would love to visit for a weekend, but definitely wouldn’t like to live there, unless we could renovate a bit!
Now it’s time for me to draw and I’ll be back to tell you all about my process. I hope you enjoyed this tour and got some inspiration for your own Christmas décor. Would you live in the McCallister’s house? Tell me in the comments!
