title: How to customize Wordpress Theme before going live
body: <p>Yesterday I installed a new theme on Wordpress on my self-hosted website. I am aware of the feature that allows you to preview a theme and have used it to select a new Theme that I want to install. </p>
  
  <p><strong>Problem</strong>
  I do not want to interrupt normal operations of my website, but this new theme requires a lot of customization before it is ready to go. How do I do this?</p>
  
  <p><strong>My Crappy Solution</strong>
  Is the only way to go about it to run a virtual server on my desktop? This seems tedious, not to mention all the errors I usually get when switching to the "real" server when doing this.</p>
  
  <p><strong>A better way?</strong>
  I've been searching on SO as well as the <a href="http://en.forums.wordpress.com/forum/themes" rel="nofollow">WordPress</a> Forum for an answer as to how to do this, but have come up short. I would have thought this is a common question. Maybe I'm using the wrong search terms <code>[themes, customization, before installing]</code>???</p>
  
  <p>Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!</p>