dev on subdomain while using live database - recommended?

[floko]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently working on a website redesign in a development environment (XAMPP on a local machine), using a local copy of the live website's database.
Unfortunately, there are lots of changes to the live database, so I am considering the following approach:
Set up a subdomain, copy all files from the live Process Wire website and use content from the live database, so I can play around with the content of "templates" using the latest changes. 
Is that feasible and something you would recommend?

Thank you!
floko