Welcome to the Givens residence, the new face of Northwest living.

The two-story, sage green house is in Pierce County's South Hill area. It has four bedrooms and gas heat. It's squeezed onto a tiny lot in a subdivision with a woodsy name.

And it's just what the young family of four wanted - and could afford.

"It's perfect for us right now," said Licia Givens.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Census Bureau released its most detailed figures so far on housing in Washington. Combined with insights from local experts, the information from Census 2000 paints a picture of today's typical home in the Puget Sound region - and it looks pretty much like the Givenses'.

The data also underscore the phenomenal rise in the cost of houses during the economic boom of the 1990s. The median home value in the state jumped from $92,800 to $168,300 - an increase of 81 percent. Pierce and Thurston counties saw an 82 percent increase, while home values in King County increased 70 percent.

But despite the widespread bonanza, the census numbers show that many people still struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Nearly 40 percent of Washington's renters spend more than 30 percent of their income for rent alone.

From the number of rooms per household to the type of plumbing facilities, the 10-year census collects a wide array of data on the places Americans call home.

The new data for Washington show that, like the Givenses, most families live in single-family homes: about 62 percent statewide, 63 percent in Pierce and Thurston counties and 57 percent in King County.

More than one in five Washington homes was built since 1990. In the South Sound, the new homes are largely concentrated in rural and suburban growth hot spots such as South Hill (39 percent post-1990 homes), Orting (48 percent) and Bonney Lake (35 percent).

The structures themselves have more rooms than 10 years ago, and most recent-vintage houses are two stories.

In 1990, the median number of rooms in Washington homes was 5.2, a figure that doesn't include bathrooms. In 2000, the median was 5.4 rooms. It's not a big change, but builders say it reflects a major shift from two- and three-bedroom homes to today's favored model: the four-bedroom house.

The Givenses didn't consider anything else. They wanted a bedroom for each of their two children and a room for their computer.

"We'd rather have that fourth room and a smaller master bedroom," Givens said.

Two-bedroom houses are becoming a rarity, said Denis Eckert, Puyallup branch manager for John L. Scott Realty. "They just die on the market."

Ramblers also are a thing of the past.

The sprawling, one-story homes simply take up too much space, which has become a precious commodity, said Rick Brunaugh, president of the Master Builders Association of Pierce County. For the same reason, three-car garages are less common today than in the '70s and '80s.

"Lot prices have increased unbelievably in the last 10 years," said Brunaugh. In the late 1980s, his company sold 100-by-120-foot lots in Bonney Lake for $21,000. Today, lots half the size sell for up to $70,000.

That's why two stories are favored and houses sit so close together in new developments.

The high price of land is also one of the factors behind an upswing in condominiums in the South Sound.

The census doesn't count condos, but local real estate watchers say numbers started increasing at the end of the 1990s. The growth is accelerating now, said Suzanne Britsch, whose company Real Vision Research Inc. tracks condominium sales.

Some people pick condos because they're cheaper than single-family homes, but many are attracted primarily by the lifestyle.

"It's easy and it's convenient and we don't have to mow the lawn," said Alex Crewdson.

He and his wife, Colleen, are self-described snowbirds who spend their summers in a two-bedroom condominium in Northwest Landing, a planned community in DuPont. They moved in two years ago, after selling the big house in Puyallup where Colleen had lived for 30 years and raised her children from a previous marriage.

"It's really a whole new phase in our lives, after retiring," she said.

For those in the house-buying phase, the past decade was both exhilarating and daunting. In 2000, slightly fewer than 65 percent of Washington households owned their homes, an increase of about 2 percentage points over 1990. That's still well below 1960's high mark of 68.5 percent and the national average of about 66 percent.

The explanation is affordability, said Glenn Crellin, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research. "The decade of the '90s just saw such tremendous price increases, particularly in the Puget Sound region, that we just weren't able to keep up."

In Seattle, the median home value rose more than 90 percent, to nearly $260,000. Tacoma's median home value increased 88 percent, to $123,300. In Orting, South Prairie and DuPont, median values more than doubled.

Statewide and in Pierce and King counties, mortgage payments grew 72 percent. In Thurston County, the increase was 63 percent.

Housing costs outpaced household income in the Puget Sound region over the past 10 years.

That forced many people, like the Givenses, to move farther from the urban core. The family had hoped to live closer to Seattle, where Todd Givens works as a Qwest salesman, but found themselves priced out of the market, Licia Givens said.

"We looked in Issaquah, but it was $250,000 on up for the same house we have here."

The real estate market has cooled slightly along with the economy and is unlikely to repeat the past decade's meteoric rise, said University of Puget Sound economist Bruce Mann. "No one is looking for that kind of strong surge in the next 10 years."

Rents didn't climb as steeply as mortgages, increasing 48-49 percent statewide and in King County. In Pierce and Thurston counties, the increase was 42-43 percent. The result has been a 2 percentage point increase in the proportion of people who live on the financial edge.

The federal government recommends that renters spend no more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities, but four out of 10 Washington renters exceed that threshold.

Lisa Carns and her 16-year-old daughter, Sarah, share a tiny, one-bedroom apartment. Rent alone consumes more than half of the money Lisa earns as a paraeducator in a school for emotionally disturbed children. Disabled by a stroke four years ago, it's difficult for her to find a higher-paying job.

"I'm playing the money game every month," she said.

Soaring utility costs over the past couple of years have only added to her problems, Carns said. "The gas bill has been astronomical."

The census hasn't released numbers on utility costs yet, but has revealed the way people heat their homes.

Electricity remains the leader, heating 53 percent of Washington homes. But for the first time since the rise of hydropower in the 1960s, the percentage of homes heated electrically dropped, falling about 2 percent. Gas now heats nearly one-third of homes, up more than 10 percent since 1990.

The reason is the relatively low cost of gas, particularly before the current power crunch, said Dorothy Bracken, spokeswoman for Puget Sound Energy. Nearly all new housing developments have gas heat, she said.

A shrinking minority - now 5.6 percent - of Washington households still rely on fuel oil for heat.

Tacoma native Pete Grimm had oil delivered about five times a year to the modest 1 1/2-story home in South Tacoma where he has lived for more than 40 years.

He figures it's cheaper and easier than switching to gas or electricity.

Of course, the 75-year-old Grimm also remembers growing up with a wood stove and ice box, in a neighborhood where outhouses were the norm. And he and his wife, June, did something few families today would consider: They raised three sons in a house with one bathroom.

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* Reach staff writer Sandi Doughton at 253-597-8516 or sandi.doughton@mail.tribnet.com.