Solid brass wears quickly when used as hinges unless it has bearings at the pressure points. That requires big hinges and they are expensive. I bought an exterior door set of Masonite brand at HD-- special ordered with brass hinges. The hinges on my doors are steel, brass-plated, and now are rusty. Since I prepaid, they stuck me with the steel hinges. Test with a magnet if a sample of the hinge is available. Brass is not magnetic.

Missymoo12 - I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan and went to one granite place my fabricator suggested and walked through and wrote down three kinds. The leathered Steel Gray, the Honed Carrara and something else that I can't even remember. I did not spend much time there at all, probably more time looking at some of the wild ones and snickering at the names. Yes, I am a child. I also called the Steel Gray "Blue Steel" the whole time and made the receptionist laugh a lot. It's a Zoolander quote. Also, they only had about five leathered slabs in the whole place and maybe five honed, they had hundreds of different kinds of stone. I didn't look through the slabs either, just the top one. In retrospect, maybe I should have looked a little more, but it seemed right so I just went with it. I mentioned above, I was getting a migraine and hardly remembered what the slabs looked like the next day. Could you ask your fabricator where they thought you could get leathered or honed? My fabricator hadn't worked with leathered before and the stone yard (Monsma) said it wasn't all that popular yet. I figure I'm in west michigan and so it'll take a while to catch on here. Everyone that visits asks what our counters are, i think because of the matte-ness and texture. I had read about it here on GW and so was interested in seeing it in person. Love at first touch. Lol

I echo what hollysprings said. Even a very expensive faucet will have mineral buildup on it and it won't be the faucet's fault. It has to do with the water. Have your water evaluated and treated. You gotta think, if it's doing that to the faucet surface, what's it doing to your pipe interiors or you? In the meantime, try some CLR on your existing faucet. You may need to build a dam around it with some clay in order to be able to soak it, or find a CLR type treatment in a gel form. It may darken the nickel to do this, but at least your faucet will be functional again until you can replace it. I'd choose a stainless one for the next faucet, as it will remain non reactive in the presence of harsh chemicals like CLR, and do the mineral removal at least once a month until the water treatment plan is implemented.

No one is mentioning that Rachiele sinks are very very expensive. The OP does not provide a budget which s/he needs to do in order for anyone to answer the question within the correct parameters, regarding either the sink or the faucet. For a more reasonable price for a SS apron front sink, check out Kraus sinks on overstock or other websites.