Painting an area that gets friction?

[Myhouseonly]

We have a ceiling clothes drier.
It has a hook on the wall that the rope gets wrapped around as I lift and lower it.
The rubbing and friction doing this has worn away the paint and made a dent in the plaster behind the hook.
We are redocorating. Is there some sort of protection I can put on the wall to stop this happening again? I dont want to mess about installing a winding handle.
All I can think of is a metal sheet or something over the wall behind the hook. Is there something better?

I would get a thin piece of wood or mdf and paint in a gloss or satin paint. Attach to the wall then screw the cleat onto that.

Do you need the extra wheel on the wall? Mine doesn't have one it goes straight from the ceiling to the cleat.

Ah. I thought the picture showed the hook but I've zoomed in amd you're right it's a wheel. 🙈 Imagine it's the hook that you tie the rope around! We dont have a wheel.

Sorry I can see that now. OK so what I've done is tie two knots in the rope, one for up position and one for down. Then I can just hook it rather than wind the rope around the cleat. Could you do this to avoid the friction (might save you some effort too!)

I've often lusted after a pulley, are they worth having? My mum had one back in the 70s but it seemed much bigger.

We have cats so dangling rope isn't a good idea. They'll either somehow pull the whole thing down on themselves or get tangled the rope.

We've got a high ceiling so need the excess rope and it's too high for me to sort of fling it over the rails if that makes sense.

Yes!
We don't have a tumble drier. Mine fits a machine load on so as long as Im on top of the washing we dont need clothes hanging anywhere else.
I put a dehymidifier under it to avoid damp.
As long as it's not overloaded, the washing dries reasonably quickly without getting stiff.

I wonder if you could do something a bit kitsch like hang a wooden panel sign with home sweet home on the bit that touches. As unobtrusive as possible, I know 🤢but just to protect the wall and remove it when you go to sell. Or have a hook that protrudes much more along the lines of what you'd use for a hanging basket.