Connection with shared printer

I solved a problem which I would like some thoughts on. The reason is because even though I solved the problem, I don't understand why it worked because it was not supposed to work.
I have a wireless home network set up. My desktop computer is my server which I have my printers installed on which I access with my laptop. The problem was that while on my laptop, I couldn't connect to my printers. I could access my files but I couldn't print. It was working fine up until a few days ago. I don't know how many things I tried to get my laptop to connect to my printers but it just would not work. So today I decided to get on my laptop and leave the home group and then join it again. Thinking that by doing that and starting fresh it may work. When I chose to leave the home group, the pop up message warned me that if I did that, I would no longer be able to access my files on the home group which I understood, so I clicked on OK. But before I joined again I wanted to see if I really could access my files. To my surprise, I could actually access them. I was suppressed because this was not supposed to happen. So I then decided to see if I could connect to my printer and I could. My problem was solved. But this was not supposed to happen since I did leave the home group. So you think it that with all the things that I tried to be able to connect to my printer, I inadvertently had joined twice? Then by leaving I didn't exactly leave but instead removed the one I didn't need?

Sometimes trial and error has its own logic. Maybe the homegroup had some setting that was blocking your printer access. But it's tough to say with no indication of the current state of your network. They say "if it ain't broke don't fix it." So I guess a corollary would be "If you fixed it don't try to figure out how. Just use it." :)