My question is: do I delete the database in phpmyadmin and create a new one and then import the redesigned website’s database – or do I drop all the tables in the current website’s database and then import the redesigned wensite’s database into the empty current database?

I would prefer to just drop all the tables but would like to make sure that it would be safe to do so.

Thank you.

This way you don’t lose any posts, pages, or user data. Some of that content was possibly ‘hard won’ and I’d not treat it lightly.

When you are done and have the site setup to your satisfaction you can follow these directions to make that new WordPress run as the site… https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory

Later on you can move stuff around in the two subsets of that database as needed or do a second subdirectory install if you need to get at that info via WordPress. And of course you can delete all those extra tables via PHPmyAdmin at that time.

Thanks again.