Do I have to delete my project in order to check it out of svn?

This is my first ever attempt at creating an svn repository and I'm confused. I have a project in `/var/www/project`, and I have a `/var/svn/` dir to store the repositories, so I run: ``` $ svnadmin create /var/svn/project ``` and I import my tree with ``` $ svn import /var/www/project file:///var/svn/project/trunk ``` so far so good -- I think Now I need a working copy, but I can't checkout in my existing dir or I get ``` svn: Failed to add file 'some.file': an unversioned file of the same name already exists ``` am I supposed to delete the entire project tree and then check it out of svn? Also, is this the right way to set up a repository?